Report: No Plug-in Volkswagen Tiguan for North America

Even though the second-generation Tiguan concept featured hybrid power, and even though Volkswagen is in the midst of one of the world’s biggest electrification pushes, North American customers won’t be able to buy a plug-in hybrid Tiguan.

That’s according to Car and Driver, which reports that VW boss Herbert Diess doesn’t think such a car would make sense in the region.

Asked where the Tiguan would be offered as a plug-in hybrid, he said: “For America, plug-in hybrids don’t make a lot of sense for the upstream emissions, and they’re just not incentivized by the tax schemes.”

Diess went on to admit that the only major market where a plug-in hybrid Tiguan was a certainty was China, though he would not commit to more than uncertainty about such a vehicle in Europe.

SEE ALSO: 2018 Volkswagen Tiguan Review

Although Diess was involved in a conversation about the Tiguan, the strength of his quote led Car and Driver, among others, to question whether there would be any plug-ins in North America in the near future. Without tax incentives for the technology, and none on the horizon it stands to reason that it won’t make sense to bring any plug-ins across the Atlantic.

That doesn’t mean that North Americans won’t be included in electrification, at all, though. The plan is still very much for fully electric MEB-based vehicles to come to North America, but don’t expect them to come with solid state batteries.

“Not for the first generation of [solid state] batteries,” said Diess. “Solid state can only kick in for ’24 or ’25. To say 2020, that’s courageous!”

A version of this story originally appeared on VW Vortex

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