The 2025 Volkswagen Taos is not an exciting vehicle. When you mat the gas pedal, pull back on the shifter and grip the steering wheel, you aren’t filled with a deep sense that this compact crossover is meant to be a bastion of driving enjoyment. Instead, you’re met with middling acceleration, a silky smooth transmission and a steering system so light you can almost hear it telling you to calm the fuck down. This might make it sound like I am not a fan of the Taos, but you’d be wrong.
VW’s updated tiny crossover builds upon a strong foundation the Taos had when it first came out in 2020. What it lacks in driving dynamics and overall excitement, it more than makes up for in smart and easy-to-use technology, handsome-enough styling, a lot of clever packaging and solid but uninspiring powertrain options. The Taos won’t surprise you when you get behind the wheel, but that was never the point anyway.
Full Disclosure: Volkswagen flew me down to San Antonio, Texas, fed me and put me up in a very nice hotel all so I could drive the 2025 Taos.
Compact crossovers like the Taos, Chevy Trax, Hyundai Kona and Mazda CX-30 are hot right now, so it makes sense that Volkswagen would try to go the extra mile when updating its ‘lil SUV for 2025 to try and set it apart from some very stiff competition. Volkswagen put a lot of money and effort into making the Taos feel more premium by upgrading the power numbers, transmission, interior materials, styling and adding some features you don’t even see on every luxury car.
The interior of the 2025 Taos feels like a nicer, more premium place to spend your time thanks to several really smart tech features and better materials. One of those material highlights is the addition of a fairly convincing leatherette on the door cards in place of hard plastic. It’s little details like that that I can appreciate. There are few things I hate more than hard plastic in high-touch areas. While the very comfy seats remain unchanged for 2025, the Taos does gain a new blue interior option. How great is that? Sadly, I didn’t get a chance to check these out in person, but blue interiors rock.
Overall, the interior is very well laid out in an aggressively Volkswagen way. What I mean by that is it’s the same basic interior layout Volkswagen has been working with across its portfolio for over a decade at this point. Everything is very logically placed; you’re never going to have to hunt for a button or control whether it’s on the dashboard or in the infotainment system. The eight-inch touchscreen works very well, but I do wish it was a bit bigger. Eight inches just isn’t enough these days. Ask your girlfriend.
The three-stage (!!!) heated steering wheel feels very nice to grip, as does the Tiptronic shifter. My only gripe is with the haptic touch buttons used to adjust the climate control system. I appreciate they’re still physical buttons that aren’t tied to a screen, but damn they’re hard to operate at speed. Space is also plentiful. Volkswagen says the front-wheel-drive Taos has 27.9 cubic feet of cargo room behind the rear seats, and there’s more than enough rear seat room for my 6-foot-1 frame to sit behind my driving position. That’s a pass if you ask me.
On the outside, Volkswagen did a very nice nip-tuck job to the Taos, making it look just a bit sharper without getting too aggressive. It gains the corporate-ish front and rear light bars and illuminated badges. These light bars, man. So hot right now. Those lighting systems highlight the tweaks that have been made to the front and rear facias overall. I hate that it kept the dumbass fake exhaust tips, but that’s a minor sin I’m willing to forgive. Not much else has changed. There are a few new, handsome wheel options to choose from, and some new colors. I can’t really complain. It looks like a Volkswagen Taos. What were you expecting?
Another big change for the Taos going into 2025 is that VW dropped the seven-speed DSG transmission it employed in all-wheel-drive models. Instead, all 4Motion Taoses will get the same eight-speed automatic that was found in FWD models. Volkswagen apparently did this because it was tired of people complaining that their cars felt broken since they weren’t used to DSGs. Bunch of babies. While it’s sad to see a dual-clutch transmission bite the dust, this eight-speed is really quite good. Shifts up and down are buttery smooth to the point you barely even notice them. Gas mileage also goes up with the addition of an eighth gear, and who doesn’t love that?
That mileage bonus comes despite the fact the Taos now has more horsepower for 2025. Volkswagen reworked some of the internals of its turbocharged 1.5-liter inline-4 motor to give it a rip-roaring 178 horsepower. That’s up from the 158 horsepower of the previous car. Torque remains the same at 184 lb-ft. It’s enough.
I suppose I should at least touch on how the 2025 Taos drives for all the Taos-pilled pervs out there. First of all, what the hell is wrong with you? Second of all, it’s fine. It’s not a track star, and you best believe it isn’t trying to be. That 1.5-liter turbo motor does a good job of getting you off the line fairly quickly. Volkswagen says 4Motion Taoses will mosey up to 60 in 7.4 seconds; that goes up a tick for front-wheel-drive cars to 7.5 seconds. Tip-in is actually sort of aggressive. In the FWD Taos it wasn’t uncommon to chirp the tires under hard-ish acceleration. Most of the power is reserved for the higher parts of the rev range, so passing on the highway means a few gears are going to be dropped to get into the power band. Luckily, the engine doesn’t make that much noise and the transmission is extremely smooth, so it’s not too much of a chore.
There are a few drive modes to choose from including Sport, Normal, Economy and a Custom mode, along with a few other off-road modes on 4Motion cars (FWD are stuck with a single default mode, but you can shift the transmission into Sport). You won’t feel too much change with the drivetrain, other than when you go into Eco mode when it becomes an absolute dog, and that’s sort of the point. It very much discourages hard acceleration, and that’s how the Taos gets EPA-estimated 28 mpg city, 36 mpg highway and 31 mpg combined ratings. 4Motion cars take a bit of a hit, getting 25/33/28, according to VW.
The Taos’ steering is just about as vanilla as its powertrain. There’s very little feel, not that any Taos buyer wants or needs an extremely communicative electronic steering system. There’s also some play in the steering wheel on-center, but again, who the fuck cares? It’s very light — you can pretty much drive it with one finger — and that’s exactly what Taosheads want. It goes around corners with very little fuss when you’re driving hard. Of course, the Taos pushes if you overcook it a bit, just to remind you that it would like it if you relaxed for one goddamn second.
A real highlight of the Taos’ driving dynamics is its suspension. Not because it’s sporty or anything like that, but because it’s extremely comfortable and far more refined than its $26,420 base price would have you believe. The front strut and rear multilink suspension (FWD Taoses get a torsion beam) maintain total composure over even the roughest of pavements Texas had to throw at it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a Rolls-Royce or anything, but it ain’t too shabby, either. Yeah, it rolls or whatever in the corners, but of course it does. That just means it’s all the more comfy when you’re cruising down a shitty highway surface. I also can’t fault its ambient volume. For what we’re working with here, the Taos is fairly quiet on the highway. There’s some noise intrusion, this is an economy car after all, but it could be a whole lot worse.
If this all sounds appealing to you, you’re in luck. The 2025 Taos is already showing up on dealer lots. To further your lucky streak, it isn’t too expensive either. There are four models to choose from, with the cheapest S starting at $26,420 including $1,425 for destination. Then you’ve got the SE ($29,320), the SE Black ($31,570) and the top-end SEL ($36,120). All but the SEL get standard FWD, with 4Motion adding $1,700 to the price, and I promise you don’t need it. Spend a few hundred bucks on winter tires, and you’ll be happier, get better gas mileage and add five cubic feet of space to your trunk.
No matter what trim level you go for, all Taos models get the same motor and transmission, projector beam headlights, the very cute light bar on the front and back, keyless start, an eight-inch infotainment screen and VW’s IQ Drive suite of driver assistance tech. The higher up you go in the range, you start adding things like bigger wheels, a 10.25-inch gauge cluster screen, ambient lighting, a massive panoramic sunroof as well as heated and ventilated seats. That’s really not too shabby.
Listen, like so many vehicles on sale today, the Taos isn’t for people like you and me. The average Taos buyer doesn’t care about off-the-line acceleration, mid-corner dynamics or how fast their car can lap a racetrack. They want basic transportation with enough niceties to get you through the day without having a nervous breakdown. What more can you really ask for? The Taos offer literally zero surprises, and that’s a promise, not a threat. This is a vehicle made simply for getting from point-A to point-B without being annoying, and it does a damn good job of that.
