PARIS MOTOR SHOW: VW sketches people's EV

Volkswagen isn’t just hoping to deliver an emissions-free electric powertrain for the masses at next week’s Paris motor show, it’s trying to reinvent how it does family cars.

These sketches released by the German giant ahead of the world debut of its full-electric concept car next Friday (September 29) reveal it will have sliding rear doors to make life easier in city streets.

More than just a concept, though, Volkswagen has every intention to make the as-yet-unnamed vehicle a production reality in a bid to sell a million electric vehicles a year from 30 electric models by 2025 and become the biggest seller of battery-electric cars in the world.

Volkswagen promises it will have a range of between 400km and 600km, and will be the first car into production off its new small Modular Electric Kit (MEB) architecture.

The company, which currently sells just two full electric cars globally, has shown the concept car to be B-segment in size and will deliver a steeply sloped windscreen.

That promises to deliver an enormous amount of interior space for a car with a Golf-sized footprint, with the windscreen glass running the full length of the roof and ending at the rear hatch.

It also has four strange circles on each corner of its roof and, though Volkswagen is being coy about what they’re for, they could be anything from a set of wireless antennas to transmit information to infrastructure like traffic lights, to part of a high-speed internet system Volkswagen is planning to use to give detailed real-time information to keep the HERE maps up to date, suggesting it’s pre-engineered for a high degree of autonomous driving.

The overhangs are very short at both ends to maximise its interior space, which Volkswagen suggests will be about the same as the current Passat.

The VW conglomerate wants to have as many as 30 EVS by 2025 – including a born-again Kombi inspired by the Budd-e concept, so the small hatchback being teased here is only the tip of the iceberg.