Hybrid Touareg breaks cover

The luxury four-wheel-drive twins under the skin -- the Porsche Cayenne and Volkswagen Touareg -- are a bit like Kylie and Dannii Minogue.

They don't like to take the spotlight away from each other, and generally don't crash the other's official gathering.

With the launch of the original Cayenne six years ago, the Porsche broke cover first and then the Volkswagen version followed.

The same routine was apparently going to be followed with the launch of the all-new, second generation models due this year.

The Porsche was going to debut at Geneva, and the Touareg would make its public splash at another international motor soon after. So it was a surprise to see that a hybrid version of the new Touareg was smack, bang in the middle of the Volkswagen stand at Geneva, just up the hall from Porsche.

We're not sure what the politics is like now that Volkswagen has a 49 per cent share in the Stuttgart sports car maker, but Volkswagen clearly knew a while back the Toaureg was coming.

How do we know? The impressive, glossy and perfect-bound Volkswagen press kit had the Touareg in the thick of it. And these would have been printed some time ago...

So, perhaps a little unsurprisingly, the technical details are similar to the Porsche Cayenne: weight has been cut by an impressive 208kg. Understandably, all models are more fuel efficient as a result.

Just as the Cayenne is the first hybrid for Porsche, the Touareg will be the first Volkswagen offered as a hybrid. The power outputs of both hybrid models are identical. When the power and torque for both the 3.6-litre V6 petrol engine and the electric motor are combined, the stats are impressive: 279kW of power and 580Nm of torque.

Combined-cycle average consumption is 8.2L/100km -- which is not as frugal as the fuel rating label figure for the Lexus RX450h hybrid softroader (6.4L/100km), but chances are this figure may be more realistic. (During independent testing the Carsales Network struggled to get better than 8.8L/100km in the Lexus).

For all the hype the Touareg hybrid may miss the boat to Australia, at least for the first 12 months. Meanwhile, the Cayenne hybrid has been confirmed for Australia from the very start, along with the V8 petrol and twin turbo V8 petrol versions. The V6 diesel and V6 petrol versions of the Cayenne will follow a few months later.

VW, on the other hand, is going to focus on the regular 3.6-litre V6 petrol model and the revised 3.0-litre turbo diesel engine initially. The 3.0-litre V6 turbo diesel (176kW and 550Nm) consumes an average of 7.4L/100km, according to VW tests.

An all-new 4.2-litre V8 turbo diesel with 250kW and 800Nm of torque has a combined fuel average of 9.1L/100km and is due to follow in 2011.

Most large 4WDs have the aerodynamic efficiency of a block of flats. And the Touareg is no different, except VW designers have been able to trim away at the body to help it slip through the air a little easier, with a reduced drag figure from 0.38 to 0.35.

As before, all Touaregs are still all-wheel drive and come with a Torsen limited slip differential. Crawl control -- that helps the driver up and down hills -- is also standard.

Volkswagen has sold about half a million of the first generation Touaregs. The new model goes on sale in Europe in April and in Australia in the second half of the year.

The new model can't come soon enough for Volkswagen in Australia. Sales of the current model have slowed dramatically. Just 51 have been sold in the first two months of this year, according to data from the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries.

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