The new, second-generation Volkswagen Atlas Cross Sport is here, and though my initial thought was that many of you car-nuts probably don’t care, I was surprised to see how many comments there were on Jason’s article about the longer, three-row 2027 VW Atlas. So allow me to present to you that same car, but a bit shorter and equipped with one fewer row of seating. I actually like the way it looks.
When Jason wrote about the 2027 VW Atlas, lots of people had opinions, especially about the interior. Here are a few of those opinions:
VW continues to get shit on about lack of buttons yet continues to stick with touch screen for almost everything (except on the steering wheel, which is like the bare minimum).
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Light-up grill and badge, animated tail lights, and plenty of gaudy interior LED lighting. Great to see that VW has the sense to is work hard on the stuff that makes a car actually good to own and drive.
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Wow, some of these are brutal, but three years ago VW’s CEO talked about how confusing some of the company’s user interfaces are, and some interpreted this as: Our touchscreens are confusing, we need to bring some physical buttons back.
Apparently not, because the shortened Atlas Cross Sport (5.4 inches shorter at 195.6, 2.1 inches lower) has the exact same interior (and 12.9-inch touchscreen) that readers ripped on in the comments above:
I’m with everyone on the lack of physical switches, but I think that interior looks gorgeous. The tri-spoke wheel is classy, the lighting is fun, and the two-tone seats, door panels, and dash? Beautiful. (Also, shout-out to the storage under that center tunnel!).
You know what? I think, aesthetics wise, the whole thing looks great.
For comparison, here’s the big-butted three-row: 
The Tiguan is rated at 25 combined and the current Atlas gets a measly 22. Even if you don’t give a shit about the environment I really have no clue how you choose one of these over a Honda or Toyota hybrid and get 10+ better, plus better reliability, PLUS better resale.
Yikes! (The Cross Sport has the same 282 horsepower, 258 lb-ft of torque EA888 turbocharged, direct-injected 2.0-liter four-cylinder TSI motor as the three-row).
For the record, I think people are being hard on Volkswagen because of just how beloved VW was pre-Dieselgate. VW Vortex was a larger-than-life online community, GTIs still had stick shifts, GLIs still had stick shifts, that 2.5-liter five-cylinder made lots of fun noises, the VR6 was a beast, there were great diesels, the Touareg could actually off-road, and on and on. VW was awesome, and as Jason has written before, nowadays its image needs a revamp.
But clearly more important than any of this is the Atlas’ hippo-towing capability, which is good, though there’s a catch. From Jason:
It’ll tow 5,000 pounds, so that means you’ll likely need to opt for a female hippo instead of a male, but most consumers in the Atlas’ target demographic are generally able to find that a female hippo meets most of their day-to-day hippopotamus needs. For Atlas customers that actually do need regular access to a male hippo, there are Atlas owners’ groups that will have a co-owned male hippo available to all members based on a time-sharing plan and housed at a central, shared location.
So far, Volkswagen does not have an official plan to address the fact that the Atlas is generally not capable of towing an adult male hippopotamus, though there are unconfirmed reports that VW has been testing towing adolescent male hippos with Atlases, and this could form the basis of a work-around. We’ll keep looking into this issue.
Per my research, the average male hippo weighs around 3,500 pounds, but if you add a trailer, things could get close to the Atlas Cross Sport’s (admittedly decent) 5,000 pound towing capacity. I think Jason was really saying that, while the Atlas can tow the entire interquartile weight range of female hippos, the upper quartile of male hippo weights is probably over 4,000 pounds; you add a trailer to that and you’re over capacity. This, obviously, is a huge issue for most Americans.
That is to say nothing about America’s many rhino users, as Autopian member Rang made clear in their comment:
I’m sick and tired of carmakers ignoring us rhino users. Sure, hippopotamuseses may be more traditional, but some of us grew up without easy access.
No word on whether there’s a Rhino Over-The-Air update coming.
So there you have it. The chopped-down Atlas is here. It doesn’t fix the complaints many of you voiced five months ago about its big brother, but hey, it looks good. And I’m not the only one saying it; some Autopians say they like the big-butt Atlas Jason wrote about, writing:
This is refreshing. I have a 2018 with 180k on it. I love the VR6 and the turbo 4 stopped me from buying a 2025. This refreshing got me thinking again!
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Looks really decent, and a nice upgrade from the current model.
This shorter model looks even better.
All Images: VW
The interior would look fantastic without the big iPad in the middle.
And the exterior would look so much better without the high gaping-maw faux-grilles on either side of the vestigial front bumper and the scattered piano-black plastic chunks.
And while we’re at it – how about some wheels that are shiny all over rather than just the edges which will be nicked and scraped in no time.
Nice house, BTW – Whose is it?
I have a feeling that most of these are going to be bought by empty-nesters and the like, which doesn’t bode well for anyone.
Pity that 95% of the ones on dealer lots are going to be in white, black or silver, instead of actual colors like that fine green.
Glad VW put more effort into their redesign of the Mitsubishi Outlander than Nissan did with their Rogue PHEV.
The biggest story of this car is that VW is bringing back some actual colors. Green, “Blackberry” and some other actual shades of something other than gray. That’s good news for people who actually like a little spice in their lives, even if a crossover in a color it is a sad excuse for excitement.
Looks cool? Yeah… not really.
Hmmm, needs more fake grilles, a smaller greenhouse, probably more lightbars too. Maybe they should also raise the hood height, going to need to fit another 2.0 on top of the existing one
Perhaps I’m just old an/or being unfair, but to me the Atlas represents the peak of CUV brain-washing. Huge and garish, not actually very good at any one thing, but somehow very popular.
Is a Hippopotamus reall ya Hippopotamus or just a very hip opotamus
My rhymes are bottomless.
Wanted to add it’s from Mitch Hedberg but man does this edit button disappear fast…
Hip? Hip hop? Hip hop anonymous?!