Volkswagen Teases Paris-Bound 300-Mile Electric Car Concept
A few pictures give us a better sense what to expect later this week.
Few cars due to make their debut at this week’s Paris Motor Show are more hotly anticipated than Volkswagen’s new electric car concept, which previews its upcoming compact production EV. But to paraphrase Wallace Simpson, you can never be too rich, too thin, or stir up too much excitement for your new car—so VW has begun releasing images of the Paris-bound EV to tease it even further.
The latest batch of images, which includes four design sketches and three computer-generated renderings, depicts what is clearly a five-door hatchback. Interestingly enough, while the front doors open conventionally, the rear ones seem to slide backwards in a minivan-like fashion; combined with the apparent lack of a B-pillar, and the new EV should be easy to jump in and out of, in spite of its Golf-like size.
Up front, what appear to be multi-element LED headlights approximate a more traditional VW headlight, while the classic nose-mounted badge glows with pride. And as there’s no need for the big metal lump of an internal-combustion engine up front, the concept car has a relatively flat face—one that, in at least one drawing, looks a bit like the face of a psycho clown.
The new EV is expected to be capable of traveling between 250 and 300 miles on a single charge, with charging expected to take a mere 15 minutes. (This leads us at The Drive to believe the new Vee-Dub will use some form of 800V charging system, like the one Porsche previewed on the Mission E.)
According to Autocar, VW’s Christian Senger has said the production version of the car will use traditional steel construction—presumably, part of an effort to keep the car affordable. Previous reports have suggested the car, expected to go on sale by 2019, could cost less than a similar gas-powered hatchback, as that was one of CEO Matthias Müller’s stated goals for the project.
VW itself has declared the new EV will be its most revolutionary vehicle since the Beetle—the original, not the vase-bedecked chick car of the 1990s. Will it live up to the hype? Well, we’ll find out soon enough.
