A close look at Volkswagen's Car-Net, App-Connect in the 2018 GTI
Cars
Today, we're taking a look at the technology on the dashboard of the 2018 Volkswagen GTI.
Now, we're in a fully loaded Autobahn trim level.
But most of what we're gonna talk about also applies to the lower trim levels.
I'll point out the differences as we go along.
[MUSIC]
[MUSIC]
Now, on the dashboard, we've got this eight-inch display.
It's huge for a car of this size, and really good-looking.
Everything's really easy to read, even with sort of black-on-black color scheme that Volkswagen's chosen.
And the touchscreen is actually very responsive.
Now, the Autobahn trim-level is the only GTI that comes standard with navigation.
At lower trim levels, you're gonna have to pay a little extra for this.
The maps are really good, if a bit rudimentary in their design and the routing is actually excellent.
There's also a really good voice command that goes along with this.
Now if you choose not to hit Volkswagen's onboard navigation, you still have access to standard Apple car play and Mirrorlink connectivity.
VW is the only automaker that I know that supports all three standards, meaning that there's Not very many modern smart phones that you can't just plug into this and gain access to your maps and apps.
Now in addition to the maps and apps that you can add with your smart phone, there's also a wide range of on-board digital medium sources.
Including bluetooth connectivity, there's a USB port, there's even an SD cart slot that you can use for loading up music in the glove compartment.
That's pretty cool.
We've also got satellite radio and Terrestrial AM/FM radio with HD radio decoding.
Now the interface is actually really nice, really easy to find everything.
And you may have noticed as I'm clicking around that a lot of the buttons disappear when I take my hand away from the screen.
That's because there's an infrared sensor that detects when my hand is approaching And it pops those buttons back up.
And when I'm not using them they hide away.
It's a really cool way to keep the interface very clean, but also make me not have to dig through a whole lot of menus to find the things I use very often.
Now overall it's a really good system.
I've got one nitpick and that's when you adjust the volume knob, the power icon moves with it.
So you end up in all these situations where the power icon is sitting in a weird direction.
It's just on the right side Of mildly infuriating.
But that's kind of the biggest nitpick that I've got with this system.
Which means that it must be doing a lot of things right.
So, there's your look at the technology in the dashboard of the 2018 Volkswagen GTI.
Check out our full review for even more details about this car and to figure out what it's like to actually drive this thing.
