News Source: topspeed.com

The reasons to be suspicious of the new Volkswagen Passat  start right in the first sentence of the press release, where it is stated that the car was “designed for the American lifestyle.” This is troubling because, for many years, the most compelling reason to buy a Passat instead of a Honda Accord  was that it offered a bit of German-ness for less than the cost of an Audi  . A good chunk of that went away in 2012, when VW  announced a U.S.-specific version of the car that came in at a much lower price point, but at the expense of the things that had made the car special.

The U.S. Passat has effectively been a different model from the one the rest of the world gets ever since then, a bit bigger and a bit cheaper. With the 2016 model, Volkswagen has made an effort to make the Passat more similar to the European B8 2015 Volkswagen Passat  , which has been sold there for nearly a year at this point. This has largely been successful, and it will probably sell quite well, assuming that Volkswagen ever recovers from the Dieselgate scandal  . Because as dull as it was, the previous generation of the Passat was a huge sales hit. The changes to the 2016 Passat constitute a mid-cycle refresh, and not an actual new generation. So the changes, both inside and out, are predominately cosmetic. Most of these changes come from the European B8 Passat, and include a bit more chrome and a redesigned front fascia with slimmer headlights and the European grille. But the most significant change is that the R-Line package is being offered for the Passat for the first time in the U.S. This comes with big 19-inch wheels, a new rear diffuser and rocker panels, and black accents, most notably on the front bumper. It doesn’t suddenly turn the car into an Audi RS4  , but it really does improve the appearance. The layout of the interior is the same as that of the outgoing model, but VW has made little changes to the details here and there. This is best exemplified by the steering wheel, which is no longer used as a way for VW to show off just how cheap-looking plastic can be. The new cabin gives every appearance of having been made with higher quality materials, and this is good, since that was one of the major failings of the current generation. The car also gets the latest VW infotainment system, now compatible with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Volkswagen also claims that the system now boasts faster response times, which is always a good thing. The engines from the 2015 model will all carry over for the 2016, at least in theory. The 2.0 TDI is not currently being sold, and for the time being, there is no word on when it will again be available. VW has listed it among the engines being offered, but the press release was almost certainly written before VW landed in hot water over diesel emissions. Assuming that it ever is cleared by the EPA and offered again, it will probably be worth considering, as the North American Passat holds (for the moment, anyway) the Guinness World Record for fuel economy in a non-hybrid. Say what you will about the emissions, those TDI engines still know how to sip fuel. The gasoline engines are a 1.8-liter turbo and a 3.6-liter VR6, putting out 170 and 280 horsepower respectively. The outgoing Passat has a five-star safety rating from the NHTSA, and there is no reason to think that this would change. Nonetheless, the Passat has some new safety features in the form of driver aides. There is adaptive cruise control, forward collision warning, autonomous emergency braking, blind spot monitoring, lane departure warning and parking steering assist. There is also a new Post-Collision Braking System, which will apply the brakes following a major crash to help bring the car to a stop in the even that the driving isn’t applying the brake for whatever reason. All of these features are optional extras. A rearview camera, however, is now standard. Volkswagen will be releasing full pricing info once the 2016 Passat is headed to dealerships, but the price of the base 1.8 model was released: $22,440. That’s the same as the current model equipped with an automatic transmission, so it’s safe to assume that the Passat pricing will largely stay the same for the same levels of equipment. VW did say, however, that there would be some changes to the trim structure (this was done to increase the Passat’s “value story,” a particularly loathsome example of marketingspeak), so the prices of trims may change even if the pricing on equipment doesn’t. The 2016 Passat is a somewhat better version of what is still a fairly dull car. There’s nothing really glaringly wrong with it, but apart from a base price that is very slightly cheaper than its competitors, there is nothing about that would really compel you to buy it. But a lot of people seem to like ordinariness in a car, and some of the most unassuming models have made their homes at the top of the list of best-selling cars. The outgoing Passat was never as popular as its competitors in the U.S., but it was much more popular than the previous Passat. This change might make it more popular still, but it will need all of the help that it can get, given how people currently feel about VW.