Volkswagen Up gets new efficient gearbox

The Volkswagen Up - What Car? Car of the Year 2012 - is now available with a new automatic gearbox that reduces fuel consumption and CO2 emissions.

Volkswagen's Automated Sequential Gearbox (ASG) costs 595, and is available for three- and five-door versions of the Move Up and High Up, with the exception of Bluemotion Technology variants.

The ASG is an automated version of the manual five-speed 'box, where the gearbox chooses the optimum ratio for the current road conditions. Gearshifts can also be made manually, however, there's no steering wheel-mounted paddleshift option.

Compared with manual counterparts of the Up, the five-speed ASG models return lower CO2 emissions and improved average economy figures. For example, the Move Up three-door with ASG, extends average economy by 1.4mpg to 64.2, while CO2 emissions fall by 2g/km to 103g/km when compared with the manual version.

The VW Up with ASG is available to order now, with deliveries expected to start in October. The same gearbox is also available for the closely related Seat Mii and Skoda Citigo.

The new, efficient ASG gearbox is a 595 option for most VW Up Move Up and High Up models

Pete Barden