GENEVA MOTOR SHOW: Volkswagen Phideon

The Volkswagen Phideon is supposed to be a large four-door sedan designed purely for the Chinese market, but then why launch it in Geneva when the Beijing motor show is just weeks away?

Insiders at Volkswagen have implied that the company is sowing the seeds to deliver the Phideon to the rest of its world, which would let it save up the Phaeton badge for its all-electric, semi-autonomous flagship in 2018.

An all-new model, the all-wheel drive Phideon will be on sale in China’s luxury market segment in the third quarter of this year. Volkswagen hopes it will boost its flagging sales there and has positioned it above the long-wheelbase Magotan version of the Passat.

Developed in Germany to the specifications of its joint-venture SAIC-Volkswagen operation in China, the five-metre-long Phideon has been conceived to be driven by both chauffeurs and owners.

It will start its model life with a 220kW version of the Volkswagen Group’s 3.0-litre V6 turbo-petrol engine, which also delivers 440Nm of torque. It will be joined by a 2.0-litre, four-cylinder front-wheel drive version and a plug-in hybrid version is also planned for 2017.

The first Volkswagen with a night-vision system based on thermal imaging, it will also be the first Volkswagen-badged car to be built off the Volkswagen Group’s MLB (modular longitudinal matrix) architecture, which also sits beneath the Audi A4 and Q7.

The five-seater has a lot of pre-engineered autonomous driving technology, including active cruise control, hands-off steering and self-parking.

The Phideon ends up 5.05 metres long, 1.87 metres wide and 1.48 metres high, with a wheelbase of more than three metres, and it borrows Bentley’s active air suspension system, with five different driver settings.

Its design leans heavily on the C Coupe GTE hybrid concept car Volkswagen showed at the 2015 Shanghai motor show, and it draws its name from Fides, the Roman goddess of fidelity.