2024 VW Atlas' biggest improvements are behind the sheet metal

WOODSTOCK, N.Y. — Consumers won't be able to see the biggest upgrade to the reengineered 2024 Volkswagen Atlas and Atlas Cross Sport, but it's powerful enough to create a big storage space right in the middle of the center console.

For the coming model year, the three-row Atlas crossover and its two-row Cross Sport sibling received a new electrical architecture — the equivalent of a new central nervous system — that not only prompted an overhaul, but helped VW's business case for letting its bestselling line live a few more years.

The results? A new shift-by-wire system that opened up a huge storage space in the center console, standard IQ Drive driver assistance safety suite across the lineup, a renewed interior with standard heated and ventilated seats, soft-touch materials and new technology, among other upgrades inside and out. The upgrades were on display as VW invited journalists to drive the vehicles in upstate New York this month.

"Believe it or not, it all started from packaging," said Serban Boldea, director of product planning for Volkswagen of America. "Space inside the vehicle is a massive priority for consumers in the segment. We created a better packaged center console ... and were able to do so by removing this big mechanical device (the previous version's mechanical shifter linkage) in the middle of the center console."

Vehicle electrical architectures have evolved exponentially in the last several decades, from relatively simple wire harnesses that did little beyond delivering electrical power to switches and devices into complex bidirectional webs that focus primarily on data delivery — albeit served with a side of current.

Electrical architectures are foundational in the vehicle development process because there are so few components of a modern vehicle that don't interact in some way either with the data they deliver or the electrical power they distribute. That also means that they are expensive and not easy to change without justification, but VW's global platform strategy made some of those decisions easier, Boldea said.

"It's a very expensive undertaking. From a simple standpoint, would you rather spend a million dollars making some visual change? Or would you rather spend a million dollars to change something that no one is going to see?" Boldea asked rhetorically. "But what was important to us is to balance: We needed a visual enhancement to the car, and we need to make sure that the vehicle stays up to date — from a driver system standpoint, from a usability standpoint, from a practicality standpoint — and that's the investment that we had to make underneath the skin in order to keep that competitive."

The Atlas is built on the German automaker's MQB platform, which was upgraded with a new electrical architecture beginning with the eighth-generation Golf. "That new platform allows for even more integrations, such as shift-by-wire, as well as additional sensors for predictive [adaptive cruise control] and for some of the travel-assist features that were being developed for [the eighth-generation Golf], which were important features that we wanted to bring into Atlas," Boldea said.

In North America, the Atlas and Atlas Cross Sport are VW's most profitable vehicles, according to the brand. Through the first half of the year, Atlas sales are down 4.6 percent to 25,423, while Atlas Cross Sport sales are up 10 percent to 15,205. Besides their sales performance, VW could justify the extensive product intervention in the Atlas and Atlas Cross Sport to boost them as the automaker continues its promised transition to an all electric vehicle lineup. An Atlas-size three-row EV is due to arrive from VW in 2026, though the gasoline-powered Atlas tandem is likely to continue to sell alongside the EV version for at least a few years.

While the 2024 Atlas and Atlas Cross Sport received upgraded technologies in a number of areas — larger infotainment and digital instrument cluster screens, a more powerful turbocharged engine, a driver assistance suite that is now standard — when it comes to its control switches, it is reverting back.

VW designers ditched a planned steering wheel with capacitive controls in favor of traditional buttons. The last-minute program switch, which came too late to impact the problematic touch controls on the Atlas' dashboard mounted controls, follows a directive from new brand head Thomas Schäfer, who said the brand needed to "create a new simplicity in operating our vehicles."

Jim Burch, product manager for the Atlas and Atlas Cross Sport with VW of America, said the capacitive controls in earlier models — including the Tiguan — did not endear themselves to consumers, who found themselves accidentally changing settings, especially on the steering wheel.

"It's something that we're well aware of from customer feedback and everyone's working towards improving these features and making it more user-friendly," Burch said.

For 2024, VW is adding a Peak Edition appearance trim, which it debuted at this year's New York auto show. The addition will give Atlas six trim levels in all, with front-wheel drive standard on the base SE and SE with Tech trims, and all-wheel drive standard on the top four trims. Atlas pricing will start at $39,075, including delivery. The two-row Atlas Cross Sport will have five trim levels for 2024, following the same fwd/awd split, with pricing starting at $38,065.