The centrepiece of the totally overhauled cockpit is a new infotainment system, running through either a 12.9in or massive 15.0in touchscreen – the latter of which you could say is a mite intrusive on your field of vision and slightly at odds with Volkswagen’s humble acknowledgement of well-publicised public feedback that it went too far with touch controls in its recent cars.
The climate-control touch bar is now permanently hosted at the bottom of this screen, so you won’t have a head-on collision every time you try to adjust the air-con, and the controversial heating control sliders are now backlit, so you won’t have to drive home sweating or shivering in the dark.
But maybe the most welcome introduction – or reintroduction – is the array of good old-fashioned buttons and switches on the spokes of the steering wheel.
The old Tiguan’s frustratingly unresponsive haptic panels for cruise-control adjustment and stereo volume were not, it is plain, a resounding success in customer clinics, and the Tiguan is among the early beneficiaries of a brand-wide return to analogue controls for such functions.
A new rotary control with its own miniature screen can be used to control the driving profile, radio volume and the cabin background lighting colours too.
And now there’s ChatGPT. This addition is all about Volkswagen attempting to get us off Apple CarPlay and Android Auto and dialled into its systems.
It’s all about big data. But in this instance, it means ChatGPT works a bit like Apple’s Siri. Ask it a question and it’ll give you an answer.
I asked Ida (Volkswagen’s voice assistant; the Germans insist it’s pronounced Ay-da rather than I-da, but she answers to both) what the oldest car publication in the world is, and she replied with Autocar. Good stuff.
I asked her who made better cars, Volkswagen or Mercedes, and she replied that both manufacturers had solid reputations. Not so good.
Volkswagen’s ChatGPT expert kept asking me to ask her how to make a chocolate cake. Her answer was, as far as I could tell, legit. But asking ChatGPT via Volkswagen while I’m driving for cooking instructions seems like the worst, most ill-conceived and stupidest way of receiving cooking instructions.