Following up the rest of Volkswagen’s SUV lineup, the tiny Taos gets its own mid-cycle refresh.
As far as small and relatively affordable SUVs are concerned, Volkswagen’s Taos has been working to claw some market share away from heavyweights like Toyota and Honda since it debuted for the 2022 model year. Now, the brand’s entry-level offering gets styling tweaks and technology updates similar in scale to the Jetta sedan, which also saw its own revamp for 2025.
The front end brings the most significant set of changes, as VW alluded to in its Wednesday teaser. There’s a new lower fascia design including a redesigned grille, while the light bar and headlights are their own separate feature just below the hood (which itself looks broadly the same as before). Around the back, the 2025 Volkswagen Taos gets the full-width taillight treatment like its bigger siblings, a design cue that’s become more and more common so new cars look wider and more substantial, even if the actual dimensions of the 175.8-inch-long, 72.5-inch-wide Taos hasn’t changed from its initial launch. New 17-inch alloys make their way to the base S, while FWD SE models get new 18-inchers and SEL trims get 19-inch wheels.
The SEL Black trim, which debuted for 2024, remains with this refresh. New paint colors are joining the lineup, though, including Bright Moss Green shown here, Monterey Blue Pearl and Monument Gray.
Under the hood, there’s some good news for prospective buyers as well.
You still get the 1.5-liter EA211 turbocharged four-pot as before (that’s shared with the Jetta), but VW updated its internal components to boost power to 174 horsepower (from 158 before), while torque remains the same at 184 lb-ft. Another crucial change for this year is specifically for the all-wheel drive model, as it now gets the same 8-speed automatic transmission you could only get with the front-wheel drive version before. That’s a bigger change than you might realize, because even VW acknowledged in a backgrounder that customers found the 7-speed dual-clutch transmission (or DSG) “clunky” in this application…can’t say I disagree with folks on that one.
Inside, the 2025 Volkswagen Taos adopts the same sort of infotainment layout and features as the new Jetta. That means you get an 8-inch floating center display, touch-sensitive controls for the HVAC system on SE and above trims and the automaker’s “IQ.Drive” suite of driver assistance features. Front Assist (automatic emergency braking), Active Blind Spot Monitor, Rear Traffic Alert, Lane Assist and Adaptive Cruise Control come standard across all Taos trims.
While we aren’t talking about a completely new model here, as we did in 2020, the Volkswagen Taos still has to bring the goods against the likes of the popular Toyota Corolla Cross and Honda HR-V, as well as the brand-new Nissan Kicks, among others. To that end, I wouldn’t expect pricing to increase substantially as a result of the 2025 model year changes, but we don’t have specifics on that front just yet.
Full 2025 Volkswagen Taos pricing information will be available closer to the launch later this year. The company did not get more specific than “by the end of 2024” for an arrival date, so it’s likely we’ll see cars actually hit showrooms later in Q4, around the November-December time frame.
