The Consumer Technology Association (CTA) announced that during the keynote address of Volkswagen’s Chairman of Passenger Cars Dr. Herbert Diess at the upcoming CES 2016, he will unveil a new all-electric concept car.
Diess is scheduled to deliver a keynote address about “electric mobility driving the automotive market” on January 5 at the Cosmopolitan’s Chelsea Theater.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Dieselgate is starting to significantly impact Volkswagen’s sales in the US. The company published its November reports this week (see below) and the company suffered a 24.72% average decrease across all models.
The all-electric e-Golf is one of the rare model bringing the average up, but sales haven’t really increased since the scandal. They delivered 472 e-Golf units in November, up from 119 during the same period last, but it was the first month of availability in 2014. For a better comparison, VW delivered 596 e-Golfs in October.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Volkswagen announced today that the Golf GTE Sport plug-in hybrid will make its North American debut at the Los Angeles International Auto Show, which starts November 19. Although the vehicle is still only in its concept phase, considering the “Dieselgate” situation, some expect VW to accelerate its electric car projects in order to compensate for the recent scandal, which could lead to the potential commercialization of the GTE Sport.
Expand
Expanding
Close
After just over a year at Apple, former Mercedes R&D chief Johann Jungwirth left the company earlier this month to join Volkswagen AG as the new ‘Head of Digital Transformation’. Even though his official title at Apple was “Director of Mac Systems Engineering”, the executive was rumored to be working on the company’s electric car codenamed “Project Titan” due to his extensive automotive background and the timing of the hire, which was followed by several other engineering hires with experience in the auto industry.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Volkswagen’s new board of management issued a new statement this morning highligting its new strategy to come out of the emission scandal. CEO Dr. Herbert Diess about the announcement:
“The Volkswagen brand is repositioning itself for the future. We are becoming more efficient, we are giving our product range and our core technologies a new focus, and we are creating room for forward-looking technologies by speeding up the efficiency program.”
On top of obviously changing its diesel strategy to now comply with American and European standards, the company plans on making significant investments in electric vehicles.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Tesla CEO Elon Musk is currently traveling across Europe to meet with Tesla employees and European politicians. During a press conference in Belgium, he briefly commented on the current Volkswagen scandal and cheating on emission-tests:
What Volkswagen is really showing is that we reached the limit of what is possible with diesel and gasoline.
If you need to cheat in order to pass emission tests with diesel and gas, maybe you should use something else? We expect Musk would prefer if manufacturers would use electric powertrains, like Tesla Motors…
Here’s the Video:
Expand
Expanding
Close
At the Frankfurt Motor Show this week Volkswagen introduced its first plug-in hybrid SUV: the Tiguan GTE. The German automaker revisited each trim of the gas-powered Tiguan and unveiled a new plug-in one, although unfortunately only as a “concept”.
The GTE is equipped with a 13 KWh lithium-ion high-voltage battery pack allowing for an all-electric range of 50 km (31 miles), then the direct-injection gas engine takes over.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Last month we showed you drawings of Audi’s new all-electric SUV concept and yesterday we published more advanced renderings, but today the company finally unveiled the vehicle at the Frankfurt Motor Show and we get some pictures.
Gallery of new pictures below the break: