#taos

If you’ve set sights on driving home a new Volkswagen Taos today, best cool your jets. According to a report by Automotive News, the model is under a stop-sale order by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Well, all-wheel-drive models are, anyway.

Standing outside a building that typically hosts weddings in downtown Chelsea, Michigan, a fellow auto journalist and I chatted through our masks about how it’s getting harder and harder to write about crossovers, because so many of them are just in that happy middle – not particularly great, and certainly not bad.

Add the 2022 Volkswagen Taos to that list.

Volkswagen has announced pricing for the 2022 Taos subcompact crossover, dialing things in at $24,190 for the base, front-wheel-drive version. The sum syncs up perfectly with the Golf hatchback the vehicle will effectively be replacing on the North American market (GTI excluded) and leaves us with some nagging questions about VW’s overall plan. Volkswagen is effectively killing off the Golf so Taos can have an uninterrupted moment under the spotlight, but it’s making the brand lineup look conspicuously redundant.

With Taos models priced so close to the Tiguan, there’s going to be loads of overlap on everything that isn’t the base model S trim. The larger crossover starts at $26,440 (including destination) and automatically comes with more interior volume and a beefier powertrain, though neither vehicle could be considered quick.

We already mentioned how Volkswagen is being added to the list of automakers using a tourist town in the Southwest to name a crossover and/or SUV. Now we have the full details on the 2022 Volkswagen Taos.

In addition to the Taos, there’s the Dodge Durango, Kia Telluride, Hyundai Santa Fe, Hyundai Tucson, others I am almost certainly forgetting at the moment, and now, the 2022 Volkswagen Taos.

The Audi Albuquerque or Dodge Denver can’t be far behind.

We speculated before that the Volkswagen Taos would get an existing VW engine, likely the 1.4-liter turbo-four from the Jetta.

We were close.

We recently wrote about the upcoming Volkswagen compact SUV that the company has been teasing ahead of an October debut.

Now we have a name, if not much else. Well, we do know at least one other thing – it will be unveiled (virtually, we presume) on October 13.

Oh, and one other thing – it will be built specifically for the North American market.