The new Sagitar, Tiguan L and Touron in the United States are all 8AT. Why do they all change to DSG when they arrive in China?

The new Sagitar, Tiguan L and Touron in the United States are all 8AT. Why do they all change to DSG when they arrive in China?

Due to market orientation, most people in the United States will not choose dual-clutch models, and sales are very low. Manufacturers will lose market share because of the use of dual-clutch gearboxes, which is not worth the gain.

Volkswagen is not a mainstream brand in the United States, or is a second-rate brand, so it does not have a large say. Of course, it must follow the trend, otherwise it is very likely to lose the last bit of market share.

In addition, the U.S. automobile market regulatory authorities and mechanisms are very powerful, and safety standards are very high. Needless to say, if a car has product defects, the fines may exceed decades of profits. Manufacturers absolutely dare not take this risk. risky.

Looking at the domestic market, Volkswagen has a dominant position. Before the dual-clutch problem occurred, it was promoted as a gearbox that was much more advanced than AT. After the accident, public opinion was quickly controlled, and Volkswagen suffered losses. Not big. Moreover, the reliability and smoothness of the wet dual-clutch gearbox are now greatly improved.

Mainstream view: Volkswagen relies on the favor of the Chinese people and the late start of the domestic car market and is not yet sound, and specializes in cheating the Chinese people with cheap and inferior goods. However, the United States has a sound legal system and severe penalties. The public cannot afford to offend them, so they can only behave. Use a more expensive and better AT. There are many supporters of this view, but in my opinion it is not very tenable. You know, Audi, which has a higher positioning than the Volkswagen brand, is treated exactly the same as domestically in terms of gearboxes. Except for a few models such as Q7, A8L, and S4, which use a longitudinal 8AT, the rest are dual-clutch, including the new A6, A7, and Q5, which were recently launched. The cheap Volkswagen uses 8AT, while the expensive Audi uses dual-clutch on a large scale.

But from the perspective of consumers, I don’t care if your manufacturer has difficulties in developing dual-clutch. Nothing can be a reason for you to launch a bad car to fool consumers. Since Volkswagen has chosen the dual-clutch boat and enjoyed the benefits of low hardware cost, simple structure and low requirements for machining accuracy, you should put more effort into software calibration so that consumers can drive it without losing comprehensive performance. AT and CVT mainstream level family cars. This is especially true for those autonomous dual-clutch cars that are much worse than Volkswagen.