DETROIT MOTOR SHOW: Volkswagen's Kluger fighter

Volkswagen is taking aim at Toyota’s Kluger with a car-based crossover SUV of its own.

Shown for the first time at today’s Detroit motor show, the CrossBlue all-wheel drive concept is heading for production at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga plant in North American.

The biggest vehicle by far to come from Volkswagen’s sparkling new MQB architecture, the seven-seat CrossBlue will be five metres long and two metres wide – pretty big considering it shares the Golf’s underpinnings.

It will be powered by three different powertrains, including a plug-in diesel-electric hybrid with 700Nm of torque and the capability of pushing the six- or seven-seater to 100km/h in seven seconds.

Technically, though, the CrossBlue is closer to the US-spec Jetta in its technical features and is designed to fit between the five-seat Tiguan and Touareg in VW SUV’s line-up.

While Volkswagen insists it’s a concept, insiders insist it’s serious about taking on all comers in the US, where the Tiguan is just too small for American tastes and the Touareg is based on an expensive platform (that is also shared with the Porsche Cayenne and the Audi Q7).

Volkswagen already has a big SUV in the US, but the Routan isn’t selling strongly and when it eventually reaches production, the CrossBlue will offer the hybrid - as well as petrol and diesel options – the Routan doesn’t.

No date for the CrossBlue’s arrival has been set, though VW insiders insist the production version will only be available in left-hand drive and it may be as late as 2015.

Like the US-spec Jetta, the production version of the CrossBlue will be a far simpler version than the machinery Volkswagen makes available for global consumption and may cost as little as A$30,000 – far cheaper than the Touareg.

It’s right on five metres long, two metres wide and around 1.7 metres high, which makes it almost 200mm longer than the Touareg and around 600mm longer than the Tiguan.

Being based off the MQB architecture means it runs a transverse engine and will use a lot of the running gear from the next-generation Tiguan, due towards the middle of next year.

It’s the move to transverse engines that will make the CrossBlue so cheap compared to other VW SUVs while still giving it a larger interior than its stablemates.

While it’s based on the MQB, it gets its own set of specifications, including its own wheelbase and front and rear tracks – all bigger than the Tiguan’s – along with 21-inch alloy wheels and semi-sportscar 285/45 R21 tyres.

The heart of the powertrain package is a diesel-electric plug-in hybrid that Volkswagen featured inside its Cross Coupe concept and will find widespread use in the VW range by 2014-2015.

It will use a 2.0-litre, four-cylinder turbo-diesel engine combined with a 40kW brushless electric motor up the front and an 85kW one at the back and a 9.8kW/h lithium-ion battery.

While economy is the key for the hybrid powertrain, it will still deliver more power than the Touareg’s 3.6-litre V6 petrol engine.

It will also eke out up to 20km in its electric-only, zero-emission mode, though Volkswagen is claiming an astonishing 90mpg (2.6L/100km) on the US EPA test.