German automaker, Volkswagen is set to release the next model of its Phaeton cars which will be battery powered. This announcement was made earlier today as part of a wider strategy meeting by the company’s new Volkswagen Brand Board of Management. The Phaeton model of VW is known to be the most expensive car in the lineup and is also meant to represent the future of the brand with other models getting a touch of this new technology. Volkswagen in September had been involved in the diesel emission scandal when a Notice of Violation of the Clean Air Act was issued by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to the German automaker. The company had programmed their model year 2009 through 2015 turbocharged direct injection (TDI) diesel engine so that US standards nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions were met only during laboratory emissions testing. NOx emissions during driving were up to 40 times higher. The EPA classified this programming as a defeat device, prohibited by the Clean Air Act. An estimated eleven million cars worldwide, and 500,000 in the United States, included such programming.
Despite Volkswagen’s A8 model being a full size luxury and sportier model, the Phaeton is expected to give a limousine-like offering. Retrospectively, the Phaeton model was released in 2003 but poor sales made Volkswagen pull it out from the market in 2006 with a facelift in 2007. With over 100 patents filed for technology that would appear in the car, it was the first Volkswagen with radar-based adaptive cruise control with additional features of four-zone climate control, adaptive air suspension and engines with cylinder counts ranging from 6 to 12.
