The 2027 VW Atlas Cross Sport: Still Lacks Buttons, Can’t Tow A Giant Male Hippo, No Hybrid, But Looks Cool

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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No physical buttons, BOOOOO! This is such a bad idea. What happens when that screen dies?

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That interior looks largely the same as the current one, just with more complex lighting. Still has the same crap infotainment system with no buttons as the current one. That buttonless interior is what turned me off from the last one.

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I’d suggest that VW concentrate on providing affordable, quality, reliable vehicles instead of garbage laden gadget containers.

Doing otherwise is going to tighten and accelerate the company’s spiral into the ground.

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 inability of VW to produce hybrid powertrains for their snoozy crossover lineup is going to be the final nail in the coffin for the brand in the US.

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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