Volkswagen Touareg R green-lit

A range-topping Volkswagen Touareg R is on its way and it will be fitted with a plug-in hybrid powertrain, the German car-maker has confirmed.

Speaking at the unveiling of the Volkswagen Golf Mk8 last week, Volkswagen sales and marketing chief Jurgen Stackmann told UK publication Autocar that the flagship Touareg will be “the first R model to go plug-in hybrid”.

"We start with that journey and the task is out there for Joss Capito and his team to deliver us an electric future for R," Stackmann said.

"Then that’s the journey for R. For the next five years as we are launching some Rs next year we will couple these cars with a very strong message for low emissions."

What remains unknown is the exact combustion-electric configuration for the Touareg R, including whether it will be petrol or diesel.

As it stands, the upcoming Touareg V8 TDI (pictured) will top Volkswagen’s luxurious new large SUV range, employing a 4.0-litre turbo-diesel V8 with 310kW and a stump-pulling 900Nm – enough for a spritely 4.9-second 0-100km/h dash.

The garden-variety Volkswagen Touareg Launch Edition is also diesel, utilising a 3.0-litre turbo V6 with 190kW and 600Nm.

Elsewhere in the Volkswagen Group stable, Audi’s sister SUV, the Q7 60 TFSI e, combines a 3.0-litre turbo-petrol V6 with an electric motor and bank of batteries to bring combined outputs of 330kW and 700Nm, and the Porsche Cayenne E-Hybrid extracts 340kW and 700Nm from the same set-up.

Further upstream, the flagship $288K Porsche Cayenne Turbo S E-Hybrid runs a twin-turbo 4.0-litre V8 hybrid powertrain offering no less than 500kW and 900Nm – hurling it to 100km/h in a staggering 3.8sec.

According to Autocar, the Touareg R will be unveiled at some stage next year ahead of its global release around 2021.

It won’t be the first Touareg R, however; that mantle rests with the R50 model which debuted in the late noughties employing a 5.0-litre V10 turbo-diesel offering up as much as 258kW and 850Nm.

Those outputs will likely compare modestly with Volkswagen’s upcoming successor, which will arrive in an era increasingly dictated by tightening emissions standards.

"For the immediate future I think we will still see Rs in the conventional form, so that they will be true to what R is today. But obviously we need to worry about it as our emissions need to come down in 2020, R needs to go on the way," Stackmann commented.