Volkswagen Electric eUp! Would Fly Off Lots Now But Can You Wait Till 2013?
VW’s new electric concept car is not due out of vaporware world until 2013, a bit later than most of the autoworld’s introduction of electric vehicles. But the eUp! may be worth waiting for.
The styling harkens back in time to the original wagon designed for us simple volks—the Beetle. Just as in that class defining car, for the eUp! simplicity, purity and durability are to be the guiding forces, say the design team of de Silva, Bischoff and Manzoni.
For example, that iconic VW logo on the front? Concealed neatly behind it is the integrated charging port.
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Volkswagen’s new electric vehicle will be the tiniest VW yet at just 3.19 meters long (10.47 feet) by 1.64 meters wide (5.38 feet) by 1.47 meters tall (4.82 feet). Its wheelbase is a scant 2.19 meters (7.19 feet) and it won’t weigh much either. This is rather astoundingly, considering that its lithium-ion batteries alone will account for 240 kilograms (529 pounds).
The range is expected to be up to 130 kilometers (80 miles) on an overnight 230-volt charge for the five hours when electricity is cheapest while you’re asleep.
Charged in this way, the E-Up! could be driven 100 kilometres for just two Euros in electricity costs (about 14 Euro cents per kWh). This would be the equivalent of driving 62 miles on $2.97 worth of electricity at $0.20 cents a kwh (McMansion Californian electric rates), or about like buying gas for $1.50 in a 31 mpg car.
The batteries themselves are housed in a crash-protected tray in the underbody frame with air cooling to ensure a constant heat balance within the batteries.
The entire roof will be solar and an additional sun visor folds out to scratch together a few more electrons of sunshine to power the cooling system while it soaks up heat in the parking lot.
“In keeping with Volkswagen’s ‘design DNA’ the side sections also exhibit a high level of stylistic purity, following the Bauhaus principle created in the 1920s in Germany that ‘less is more’,” says Flavio Manzoni, the head of creative design at VW, who’s about to leave VW for Ferarri.
Hope that Bauhaus thing still seems right nearly a century later, but I’d sure take one of these, regardless.
Image: Volkswagen
Source: Autoblog Green
Try the running cost maths again!
$0.20 kWh for off peak power at a California McMansion? So that makes it $0.40 kWh Peak…. doubt it!
it is about time that we banned any story about a future car release. i am sick of hearing about the me to car companies and how green their latest concept cars are. I only want to hear about what people are actually selling. anything else is just hot air.
@Paul, actually anyone who is piggy with electrons (say 700 kwh a month) in California averages 20 - 22 cents a kwh.
Unless you have a solar roof and/or are billed on TOU - time of use- pricing, but mostly only businesses take advantage of TOU.
It would be something that anyone considering an EV charged at home should ask their utility about switching to TOU billing.