CES 2016: Volkswagen Budd-e

Volkswagen has opened the door to its beyond-diesel world of all-electric cars in Las Vegas overnight at the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show.

An all-electric powertrain wrapped in a modern interpretation of the hippy favourite Kombi seems like a no-brainer as Volkswagen fires its first serious product bullet to haul it out of its Dieselgate morass.

Due in production in 2017, the BUDD-e will offer more than 500km of zero-emission running and its architecture forms the basis of Volkswagen’s Modular Electric Drive toolbox (MEB), making the BUDD-e far more significant than just another concept car.

The MEB architecture will slot beneath the Volkswagen Group’s first full generation of pure battery-electric cars, including the production version of Porsche’s beautiful Mission E concept car and Audi’s e-tron quattro concept, though not the cancelled proposal for the next-generation Volkswagen Phaeton.

The Volkswagen Group already has production electric cars, including the Golf e, though they are squeezed into existing internal-combustion production architectures rather than having their own dedicated layouts that maximise their strengths and minimise their weaknesses.

At 4.6 metres long and 1.83 metres high, the five-seat BUDD-e sits between the Volkswagen Touran people-mover and T6 Transporter van for size, though its 1940mm width makes it wider than both of the production vans.

It sports an unusually generous wheelbase, too, at 3151mm, giving the concept car short overhangs at both ends and an imposing large stance, and also means its production version could run both five- and seven-seat layouts.

Volkswagen’s designers used the sliding side door from the T6 Transporter and the rear door off the Touran also help its simplicity and ease its way into production.

That wheelbase will be crammed full of flat-packed lithium-ion battery cells in a rigid, fire-resistant, crash-resistant aluminium casing. There will be enough storage in the battery to soak up 92.4kWh of energy, which will give the BUDD-e 533km of range on the NEDC or 373km on the US’s tougher FTP 72 test.

The all-wheel drive concept uses a 110kW/200Nm electric motor to drive the front axles and a 125kW/290Nm motor to power the rear wheels, but drive from the power units is never shared because there is no physical link between them.

Its 225kW of total system power is enough to push the concept to 60mph (97km/h) in 6.9 seconds and on to a 180km/h top speed, with enough range to allow it to be used as a family’s primary car, rather than the pure-city car that many battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) are today.

It will also herald the arrival of a new generation of 150kW direct-current chargers, which will allow the BUDD-e and its production ilk to recharge from flat to 80 per cent in around 30 minutes.

A Volkswagen spokesman insists that will give the car at least 400km of range from a highway recharge in about the same time as it would take to refuel both man and machine in a conventional petrol- or diesel-powered car.

The car can be powered by cable or by inductive charging, which will be a production reality from Volkswagen and its suppliers within two years.

A stronger 800kW direct-current charger, being developed in conjunction with Japanese electronics giant Hitachi, would slice this time down to just five minutes, but is some way from production.

While Volkswagen is coy about the underbody layout of the BUDD-e, it does admit the concept, which rides on 21-inch alloy wheels, uses rear-wheel steering to help pull its turning circle down to 11.5 metres.

Its exterior designers have gone for a clean, two-tone look that reflects the Kombi history without being constrained by it, and have ditched all door-handles and even side-view mirrors.

Its front-end, with an enormous Volkswagen logo, is set in clear plastic and has been backlit with in-built LEDs, creating the possibility to alert other drivers and pedestrians of delivering changes in mood or driving style by changing the ambient colour.

That ambient lighting narrows down through the high-mounted LED headlights and into a strip that runs all the way along the sides of the BUDD-e to its tailgate and rear braking lights that join together in strips from the D-pillars.

Its designers have also utilised the space created from the flat-floored MEB architecture to deliver an interior that is designed for driving manually or autonomously, and it is also crammed with sneak previews of Volkswagen’s upcoming user-interface technology.

That technology includes a new multi-media system, a new active information display and the wonderfully named Internet of Things that connects the car with the house, the office, other cars and smart devices.

There is no more conventional dashboard, knobs or switches, with the designers insisting they are no longer necessary in electrically powered cars that will head inevitably towards autonomous driving.

It instead uses a next-generation head-up display that’s designed to look like a tablet device floating in front of the windscreen, ahead of the driver.

The interior of the BUDD-e has an all-wooden floor, with both front seats containing integrated seat belts. That helps because both front seats can turn around the face the rear when the car is stationary or running in autonomous mode.

There’s also a bench seat along one side of the passenger compartment and a 34-inch full-colour monitor on the opposite wall for down-time relaxation.

Volkswagen insists the entire concept is production-feasible, and the front seats are already based on production units.

It also blurs the lines between the central display and the driver’s traditional instrument cluster, with the two once-separate areas merging to create a central hub.

It retains a 12.3-inch Active Information Display for all driving-related information along with a 13.3-inch head unit for entertainment and information functions, but combines the two.

With no buttons or switches, all the systems are operated by gesture control, a technology BMW has rushed into service in the 7 Series and further developed with its own CES concept car. There are also touch and voice commands as layers of redundancy.

Volkswagen claims the voice-command module is clever enough to translate “can you turn the heat up a bit” into not just turning the heat up “a bit” but locating the exact passenger who asked for the change.

Its merging into the Internet of Things allows the car to blend in to the driver’s daily internet life, letting occupants turn on lights or air-conditioning at home or in the office, or vice-versa.

It’s also able to remind people if they’ve left smartphones or tablets in the car, or even handbags or smart-chipped credit cards or wallets.