Volkswagen Teases its EV Concept Ahead of Paris Debut

Volkswagen has teased a design study for its upcoming compact electric car, based on a new EV-specific architecture called MEB. The concept doesn’t have a name yet, but will debut at the Paris Motor Show at the end of the month.

From the rendering, we can see headlights that use a grid of LEDs, similar to Audi’s Matrix LED lighting system, along with LED accents that outline the headlight housing. The VW logo also appears to be backlit by LEDs. A video posted to Twitter shows more of the car’s roof and rear end, which appear to suggest a hatchback body style. Whatever it is, it looks small. We’ve heard that the car will be sized similarly to the Golf hatchback, though the MEB toolkit is scalable so the wheelbase can be altered to fit multiple applications, including  vans such as the Microbus-like BUDD-e concept that debuted at CES. Volkswagen says its presence at the Paris show will showcase the theme “Think New,” a play on the “Think Small” ad campaign that made the brand popular in the 1960s.

We know that VW is targeting a roughly 300-mile range with its new electric car, which will house its battery pack in the floor like many other modern EVs. The concept will eventually spawn a production car in 2018 or 2019. VW says that by 2025 there will be more than 30 Volkswagen Group EVs available across its brands. To support that number, VW is rumored to be looking into building a large battery plant similar to Tesla’s Gigafactory. This big push for electrification follows the wide-reaching diesel emissions cheating scandal that broke in 2015, an event the company is still recovering from.

We’ll see Volkswagen’s EV concept in Paris on September 29.

Source: Volkswagen

 

 

The post Volkswagen Teases its EV Concept Ahead of Paris Debut appeared first on Motor Trend.



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