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At the 2024 Chengdu Auto Show, SAIC-Volkswagen's new Passat pro officially made its debut and opened a reservation. As a replacement model, the new car has a comprehensive upgrade of its appearance and interior, providing 1.5T engine and 2.0T high-power engine. According to the plan, the new car will go on sale on September 10, and the new and old sales strategy will be adopted after the launch. As a reference, the price range of the fuel version of Passat currently on sale is 18.19-223300 yuan.

The above picture shows the new Passat Pro avant-garde version; the following picture shows the new Passat Pro Star version.

In terms of appearance, the new car provides two design styles: the avant-garde version and the starry version, and the main difference is mainly reflected in the internal structure design of the air intake under the front face. Among them, the avant-garde version of the model uses a large mouth intake grille, the interior is embellished with dense strips, which shows more business stability; the starry version uses the intake grille design and blackening treatment, and the interior is supplemented by a diamond grid structure, which is more athletic. In addition, the two new cars are designed with smoked headlights, LED daily running lights throughout the front face, and the glowing brand LOGO, which is highly recognizable.

On the side of the body, the overall outline of the new car is not much different from that of the current Passat. It continues to use the traditional style of outer door handle design, and is equipped with a variety of new shape rims. Among them, the avant-garde version of the model includes five-spoke smoked wheels and two-color wheels, while the Star version uses a smoked exterior mirror and black rims. In terms of body color, the new car will provide six options: pulse green, bit gray, cyber powder, instant white, supersensitive black and radium white. In terms of size, the length, width and height of the new car are 5006/1850/1489mm and the wheelbase is 2871mm. For comparison, the length, width and height of the current Passat are 4948/1836/1469mm and the wheelbase is 2871mm. In contrast, the length, width and height of the new car have increased, increasing 58/14/20mm respectively, while the wheelbase remains unchanged.

In the rear part of the car, the new car taillights adopt through-type design and fumigate the interior, the car logo can also be lit, and the exhaust adopts hidden exhaust layout. In addition, the avant-garde version and the Star version are also different in the rear bumper shape, in which the avant-garde version is treated with chrome strips, while the Star version models are designed with penetrating reflective strips.

In the interior part, the new car adopts the latest design style of Volkswagen, and will offer three themes: elegant black, Fritillaria white / sea blue and star black / nebula blue. equipped with 15-inch floating central control touch screen, 10.3-inch all-digital LCD instrument and 11.6-inch auxiliary driver entertainment screen, and the latest flat-bottomed steering wheel and pocket shift mechanism design.

In terms of power, the new car will provide two power systems: 2.0T high-power engine, DQ381 seven-speed wet double-clutch transmission, 1.5T engine and DQ200 seven-speed dry dual-clutch transmission. Among them, the maximum power of 2.0T high-power engine is 162 kilowatts, the maximum torque is 350 Nm, and the maximum power of 1.5T engine is 118 kilowatts.

Passat is a medium-sized car owned by SAIC-Volkswagen, which was first born in 1973, in which the fifth generation Passat B5 car launched in 1996 can be regarded as Volkswagen's flagship product, and this generation of car was put into the Chinese market in 2000. The Chinese market takes the Passat B5 car as the prototype for redesign. Five years later, in 2005, the sixth generation Passat B6 was launched. In October 2018, the new Passat all New Passat will be officially launched on the MQB platform; in August 2021, the new Passat family will launch 13 models with a price range of 18.19-252900 yuan; in September 2022, 2023 Passat will be available at a price of 18.19-252900 yuan; and in October 2023, the 2024 Passat upgrade will be launched at a price of 18.19-243300 yuan.

As a classic model with a long history of SAIC-Volkswagen, the Passat won the B-Class sales in 2016 and 2019, while its sister model Maiteng won the B-Class sales in 2017 and 2018, with annual sales of more than 200000 vehicles respectively. Retail data show that the top three medium-sized sedan models sold in 2023 were Camry, Passat and Maiteng, with sales of 225500, 191000 and 189400 respectively, while Accord was 174400. In the first seven months of this year, Passat topped the list with 123000, Mercedes-Benz C-Class 95,900 and Maiteng 88,600.

What needs to be faced squarely is that with the rise of independent brands, the market position of Passat and Maiteng has been shaken to a certain extent. Take the retail sales of medium-sized cars in July as an example, the top three models were BYD Qin L, Seal 06 and Passat, with sales of 32500, 21700 and 20000 respectively. In other words, the top two midsize cars have been replaced by new models.

Overall, the current Toyota Camry, Honda Accord, Nissan Teana, Maiteng and other similar models are still strong competitors to Passat, and these models were the first to be replaced last year and this year. From a comprehensive point of view of the appearance and interior of Passat Pro, compared with the models on sale, the biggest change of Passat pro is reflected in the appearance and interior, but the underlying structure has not changed. Although the overall size has been improved, the wheelbase remains the same, and the 2.0T engine is also a continuation of the cash model. Based on this, it is worth looking forward to whether SAIC Volkswagen's sales can be boosted after the listing of Passat pro.

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