VW Atlas Short-ish Term Verdict: Euro-chic but lost in translation

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August 23, 2022

After many years of peddling Euro-market crossovers to unappreciative Americans, the 2018 model year changed things for Volkswagen. The then-new Atlas was born and bred for U.S. consumers as a fresh 3-row crossover to go against the likes of the Toyota Highlander, Honda Pilot, Nissan Pathfinder and the like. Built on the highly regarded MQB platform that underpins nearly anything with a VW badge, it held the premise of bringing European engineering and driving dynamics to a largely vanilla segment. It came to market with a good sized third row, although just a 2-person capacity, and sizable cargo area behind the third row, which was fairly novel at the time, but now is pretty much expected. A bunch of key target American market metrics were there on paper, so how do we think it did?

R-Line makes nice aesthetic changes to bring some aggression to the design.

Our Configuration

I received one as my company car during my brief tenure with VW, it was a 2022 Atlas SEL R-Line with a sticker price of $48,285. So we enjoyed the niceties of things like the 10.25″ digital cockpit instrument cluster, which, cribbing from corporate cousin Audi, has some of the nicest and configurable information sets out there. Heated front seats and steering wheel were nice in the winter months, along with remote start accessed easily on the key fob itself, or in the VW app, which was one of the more impressive and reliable apps I’ve come across. We had the captain’s chairs in the 2nd row ($695 option), so our configuration was a 6-seater. A bench is available and I do like that even the top SEL Premium trim is available with the bench, most competitors force the top trim to take the captain’s chair configuration. We also had a nice panoramic sunroof with full shade and the VW suite (VW calls it IQ.DRIVE) of advanced driver assistance tech like full speed adaptive cruise control with active lane centering. Front and rear parking sensors were also very handy.

Good space and headroom in the 2nd row, even with the panoramic roof up top.

Even though the SEL R-Line is the 2nd from the top, we didn’t have power folding mirrors or a 360 top down parking camera. Those are reserved for the top SEL Premium. Same goes for a branded Fender Audio system, ventilated seats and leather seating. One additional overall feature gripe, no passenger lumbar in any Atlas, even the top SEL Premium.

Interior may seem a bit austere, but has good tech updates while avoiding VW’s newest touch controls.

Living with the Atlas

This part was pretty.. unremarkable. The Atlas did nearly everything we asked of it, and in 8 months and nearly 8,000 miles we experienced zero major issues. That should be expected of course for a new car and one that has been on the market for nearly 5 years now. Wireless Apple CarPlay was pretty reliable, although placement of our phone on the wireless charging pad was not. One element we couldn’t resolve was how to switch CarPlay between different phones (mine vs my wife’s). Using the “switch phone” control under the multimedia menu didn’t work. Would usually have to force one phone off or airplane mode from the phone itself to get the other phone to pair in. A handful of times the infotainment would be black or freeze, but a quick reset (hold in the power/volume button until the system restarts) would fix everything.

One such occurrence of the infotainment screen just going blank. Push and hold in the left knob until it reboots.

Tray on top of the dash was a great catch all for items like… our daughter’s snack cup and sunglasses. #girldad

For those hoping the VW Atlas might be something akin to a budget Audi Q7, they’d be sorely disappointed. Despite sharing a corporate master and both being 3-row crossovers of nearly the same length, they actually don’t share much of anything. The Atlas runs on the largest stretch of VW’s corporate architecture called MQB. Overall, many products on the MQB platform are terrific and help embody a uniquely European-esque flavor when it comes to vehicle handling and ride quality. I don’t know if the Atlas is just stretching it a bit too far, but none of those elements really come through. The ride is busy and feels rubbery, not really helped by the large 20″ wheels, but many brands have similar wheels and do better here. Acceleration is ok, but the initial bit of pressing the accelerator pedal is always met by an overly aggressive launch, even when you really don’t want it to. It can be a bit hard to drive smoothly around town. I would try to put the drive mode into Eco or Winter to try to take that abruptness out, but it would reset back to Normal every time you start the car. Overall the 8-speed automatic transmission was fairly smooth so no complaints there. 276 horsepower and 266 of the torques out of the V6 is fairly run of the mill in the segment. There is a 2.0 liter turbo 4-cylinder offered, but only on the lower trims. Would be curious if that felt better around town

Atlas went through a couple winter storms here in the DC area without much drama.

Top Things We Liked About The Atlas

The Size: Still one of the larger 3-rows out there, the Atlas does benefit from good space in all 3 rows. Yes, the third row is set for “just” two passengers, but lets be real, most other competitors are too. They may have 3 seat belts, but good luck fitting 3 people back there comfortably for any amount of time. Cargo area behind the third row is also good, no not minivan good, but still strong within the crossover competitive set.

The Technology: Digital Cockpit, Wireless CarPlay, Wireless Charging, Remote Start from the Key Fob, Smartphone App

The Design: Especially in R-Line guise the Atlas can look pretty stylish.

The Ease of Daily Use: Things like 4-door passive entry unlock/lock are terrific to have – some brands only have it on the front doors (Hyundai/Kia), Pivot and Tilt Captain’s Chairs are great for providing 3rd row access when you have a forward facing car seat installed in the 2nd row seat, storage areas – decent door bins, center console, space up on the dash, glove box, etc.

Cargo room is decent behind the 3rd row, but still far short of the space in a minivan.

Pivot and Tilt 2nd row seats can allow passengers into the 3rd row super easy.

Digital Cockpit has actual different configurations and displays. This one captures map, audio and trip information as well as displaying the turn by turn from Apple Maps (but won’t show the same for Google Maps) from CarPlay.

Areas of Improvement Desired

Powertrain: Throttle was jumpy and twitchy. Likely tuned to be seen as “responsive” but it just seemed out of sorts.

Ride Quality: Jittery ride, lots of low frequency vibration makes it through to the cabin.

Interior Materials: Lots of plastics and sharp edges.

Half features: The rear lift gate employs a hands-free kick to open feature, but doesn’t have kick to close. What gives? This was also an issue with our Chrysler Pacifica. Nearly every other brand gives you both handsfree options. Also even though we had full speed adaptive cruise control, no auto brake hold for normal driving.

A bit stark inside, particularly in black.

Verdict:

So while Atlas definitely seemed to meet some American market specifications (pretty much be big!), it seems to have lost a bit of its German soul vs something like the Touareg (which lives on in Europe). The driving dynamics don’t really shout GTI on stilts, but rather something closer to the American Passat, which itself has been derided as a dumbed down versus the European Passat. In chasing American customers, VW has done more assimilation rather than exert more differentiation that might be more organic to the brand, which is a shame that it can’t find a balance. There’s not much to set the Atlas apart from the competition, besides that fact that it has a European badge. No hybrids or plug ins, no super sporty version à la Ford Explorer ST, no particularly luxurious interiors like the Palisade Calligraphy or Telluride SX Prestige.

Maybe some of that will be addressed in yet another facelift for the Atlas, which hopefully might mirror some of the changes seen in the Chinese market VW Teramont pictured below. I imagine this would hold us over until VW figures out how to bring an all-electric EV 3-row crossover to market.

As for now, I don’t know if there’s enough from the Atlas that would make us consider one for purchase or lease consideration, especially given the tremendous efforts on the parts of Hyundai and Kia in this segment. Maybe availability in this market is its unique selling point? Per Cars.com currently there are over 4,400 units of Atlas on dealer lots somewhere vs. 1,500 of the Palisade and 2,800 of the Telluride. No show stopping deal breakers on the Atlas, but nothing that tugs the heart either.