Volkswagen has just unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show the electric version of the now famous Up! Concept. The new Volkswagen E-Up! concept is believed to make it to production by 2020.
The E-Up! concept is powered by an electric motor with a peak power output of 60 kW supplied by by a lithium ion battery. Fully charged the batteries offer the E-Up! a range of 130 kilometers. The motor of the front-wheel drive car, which is mounted up front and develops a maximum torque of 155 lb-ft from rest. The driver activates forward or reverse gear via a rotary knob in the center console. The fact that the E-Up! will also quite clearly offer driving enjoyment is demonstrated by a look at the car’s classic 0 to 60 MPH sprint of 11.3 seconds. The E-Up! develops even greater responsiveness in the intermediate sprint from 0 to 50 km/h in city driving: 3.5 seconds.
According to Volkswagen the E-Up! concept is the Beetle for the 21st Century: headlights with their facet-like lenses – cut like diamond, the fog lights configured as C-shaped, chrome-trimmed elements in the headlight housings, a circular pattern in the bumper.
Press release after the jump.
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Last April Audi said that they would not be producing an electric car in the near future. Well plans have changed according to Car Magazine. Audi has unofficially said it will sell an electric version of the VW Up as soon as it becomes available. Possible release estimate being late 2010.
Hopeful Audi doesn’t scrap this idea like it has so many others in the past (think back to the Q5 and Q7 hybrid programs). Audi may make a plan B since Volkswagen has has product delays with the Up. After all, it is not even clear yet whether the Up will be rear or front-engined; since the concept had the engine in the back, but the latest news is that production versions will adopt a more conventional layout. Chances are that whether it be an Audi or a VW badge there will be an electric Up in the near future.
Last week AutoCar launched the first rumor according to whom the next Volkswagen Up! will be a FWD model. Today Volkswagen confirmed those rumors and also announced that the production will be delayed by up to five months.
Volkswagen plans to sell at least 500,000 Up variants a year in Europe, emerging markets, and possibly in the US. The car’s launch was scheduled for 2010 but will now be delayed by three to five months until early 2011 because of the engine layout change.
The delay means that the Up will come to market much later than rivals planned by Toyota and Fiat. Toyota’s IQ goes on sale in Europe early next year. The Fiat Topolino launches at the end of 2009. Both will have their engines in the front.
Volkswagen plans to build hatchback, minivan and sedan versions of the Up for the Volkswagen , Skoda and Seat brands in a range it code-names New Small Family.
When Volkswagen unveiled the Up! concept last year, they announced the production version will be RWD, but because of some development difficulties, the Up! may have to be converted to a more conventional front-wheel-drive layout to achieve its original targets.
According to Volkswagen the project has three key difficulties. First, the low-cost, mid-engined layout of the Up! is proving more costly to engineer than anticipated. It’s apparently difficult to accommodate a radiator in the car’s nose and trunk coolant through the car. Second, the Up!’s rearward weight bias has caused problems with cross-wind stability in early testing.
The combination of these two serious factors is threatening to force styling compromises the company might yet reject.
But Volkswagen is saying that those problems can be beaten and that the project will go on.
Volkswagen will unveil the production version of the Up! Concept in 2010. It will come to compete with Fiat 500 and the all-new Toyota iQ. Up was first unveiled as a concept car last year at the Frankfurt Motor Show. It has a super-compact, rear-engined, rear-wheel-drive powertrain, and promises to be incredibly environmentally friendly, with low CO2 emissions.
The production version will maintain all the cheekiness and stand-out style of the concept. And that’s no surprise; bosses at VW have always made it clear that the production up! would look virtually identical to the model seen on the stands at Frankfurt.
It will be offered in both in petrol or diesel version, and have a capacity of around 600cc. Both units are likely to be turbocharged, and Volkswagen is targeting CO2 emissions of less than 100g/km and combined fuel economy of 94mpg. A 1.2-litre three-cylinder petrol motor is under consideration, too.
The production version Up! will be offered in both three and five-doors version; but a MPV will follow at a later date. A hybrid version is also under consideration.
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