BUDD-e

The Annual North American Concept Vehicle of the Year Awards gave the ‘2016 Concept Truck of the Year’ award to Volkswagen for the BUDD-e all-electric minibus concept. BUDD-e is a bit polarizing. While most EV enthusiasts would be happy to see a “microbus” with a 100 kWh battery pack, the design of the vehicle generally hasn’t been well-received and reminds of people of the ‘weirdmobile’ stigma attached to EVs, but the panel of automotive journalists acting as judges for the award disagreed.

Either way, it’s interesting to see an all-electric vehicle win the award for ‘Concept Truck of the Year’. That must be a first.
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Britain’s Car Magazine reports that Volkswagen’s BUDD-E electric vehicle has got the green light to go into production for 2020.

Volkswagen’s all-electric BUDD-e concept will make the jump into serial production, CAR understands. The VW BUDD-e concept, first seen at the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), is an ultramodern take on the VW ‘Microbus’ theme, built upon Volkswagen’s upcoming MEB modular electric platform. Dr Volkmar Tanneberger, head of electronic development and the driving force behind the BUDD-e concept, told CAR magazine’s Ben Barry: ‘[The] basic idea is to develop a modular toolkit and take this flat battery idea into serial production, one motor on the front, one on the rear. The California [camper van] and Transporter [panel van and minibus line] will continue separately as combustion engines.’ ‘You will see a car that looks a lot like this, on the MEB platform, reach production. I can’t say exactly when, but 2020 or thereabouts,’ says Tanneberger.

I’ve got mixed feelings about this.  On one hand, the more electric vehicle options the better and we all know that the electrical vehicle market is lacking in van options. Also, it is clear from the popularity of the  amazing eSamba project that there is a huge market for electric VW Busses.

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