VW

After Audi unveiled its all-electric crossover this morning, another Volkswagen brand, VW, unveiled its own all-electric crossover concept.

The vehicle, called I.D. CROZZ, is the latest member of the series of I.D. concepts for VW’s next generation all-electric vehicles using the German automaker’s Modular Electric Drive Matrix (MEB).
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As part of its court settlement with the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for the DieselGate scandal, Volkswagen agreed to invest $2 billion in electric vehicle infrastructure in the US. Last month, we reported on their plan for California, which includes installing ultra-fast 320 kW chargers, where they need to spend a significant part of the settlement.

But the rest of the US is not going to be left empty-handed. VW and the EPA released the national plan and it includes a “nationwide 150 kW+ fast-charging network” along highways, which is by far the most exciting part of the plan for EV drivers. 
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VW has been unveiling a series of new all-electric concept vehicles called “I.D. concepts”. While only concepts for now, the German automakers presents them as the basis for a series of new electric vehicles to use its MEB platform and go into production around 2020.

After a compact car and a minibus, VW now confirms that the next vehicle is an all-electric crossover and it will feature something that will sound familiar: “autopilot mode”.
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Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess confirmed that they are putting all their effort to ready their new MEB platform and launch their new electric vehicles in 2020 – just in time to comply with European and Chinese emission standards.

The German automaker’s leadership said that they will have to bring EVs to market in volumes in order to comply with those standards, which proves that strict emission standards can encourage automakers to invest heavily in electric vehicle production.
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Chinese clones are not exactly rare in the electric vehicle sector. We saw a copycat of Lit Motors’ bike last year and just yesterday we reported on Faraday Future, a China-backed company, accusing NIO, another China-backed company, of cloning its design.

But this latest example goes a few steps further and completely copied the Volkswagen e-Up electric car.
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Tesla’s strategy has clearly inspired the electrification plans of several automakers and new startups. For example, former GM executive Bob Lutz admitted that Tesla’s Roadster pushed him to make the Chevy Volt happen.

Now Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess admits that what Tesla did with the Model S forced the automaker to rethink its plans for the Phaeton.
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VW has presented the I.D. Concept as its first major entry in electric vehicles with an affordable long-range option to compete with the Tesla Model 3.

In a somewhat surprising move, the German automaker has allowed some media outlets to drive the wobbly show car they used to unveil the concept last year.
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VW debuted its 2017 e-Golf with a slightly refreshed look and a new 35.8 kWh battery pack at the LA Auto Show last year. The all-electric vehicle received its official EPA rating today and it increased the range to a combined highway and city cycle of 125 miles.
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Volkswagen is among the very few major automakers who are committed to the mass production of electric vehicles. Undoubtedly pushed by the backlash of the ‘Dieselgate’ scandal, the German automaker invested heavily in its new MEB platform for electric vehicles last year and announced plans to build 2 to 3 million all-electric cars a year and unveil 30 new models by 2025.

The company has since unveiled a few concepts using the platform and they are now laying out their design direction for EVs in more details.
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While a new generation of Volkswagen’s iconic Beetle has been expected on the Golf’s platform, the German automaker says that it is now considering to make the car on its new MEB electric platform as part of its electrification plan.
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VW kicked things off at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit this week with a new all-electric and autonomous microbus concept: I.D. BUZZ.

The vehicle is a significant step up from the previous BUDD-e electric microbus concept and actually looks like a more modern version of the classic VW microbus. It is, of course, updated with all the latest tech and more importantly, an all-electric drivetrain using Volkswagen’s upcoming MEB platform for electric vehicles.
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After the ‘Dieselgate’ scandal, Volkswagen has come out as one of the major automakers most committed to electric cars. Earlier this year, the company announced its plan to build 2 to 3 million all-electric cars a year and to unveil 30 new models by 2025 – across all its brands (VW, Audi, Porsche, etc.).

Tesla is aiming for similar volumes and we all know what the company did in order to secure the battery supply to support that kind of electric car production; the Gigafactory. Earlier this year, an insider report came out saying that Volkswagen was about to present to its board of directors a project similar to Tesla’s Gigafactory and build a ‘multi-billion euro battery factory’, but Volkswagen CEO, Matthias Müller, later denied the plan.

VW’s management is apparently now more open to the idea of Volkswagen building its own battery factory following a restructuring of the company announced last week.
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For the past months, Volkswagen has been teasing its all-electric ‘I.D. concept’ ahead of the Paris Motors Show. First with a video teaser and followed by design sketches.

Now just a day before the press event in Paris, VW revealed the full design of the vehicle with a series of renders. It also released a few details and confirmed that they aim for a parallel production with the Golf in 2020.
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Two weeks ago, Volkswagen confirmed that it will unveil an all-electric concept car at the 2016 Paris Motor show next month and released a few teaser images. Now the German Automaker releases the design sketches of the model – revealing a few design features in the process.

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When Volkswagen announced its plan to build 2 to 3 million all-electric cars a year and unveil 30 new models under its brands by 2025, we all thought of new VW, Audi or Porsche models, but now the German automaker announced a new model under its Volkswagen Commercial vehicle brand.
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We’ve got another story about Volkswagen playing with numbers related to the performance of their vehicles, but this time it’s not about vehicle emissions. It’s actually about their solution to those vehicle emissions: electric cars.

Volkswagen has yet to reveal its next flagship electric vehicle, which it aims to compete with the Tesla Model 3 and the Chevy Bolt EV, but it is already comparing it to Tesla and using at best questionable methods to do so.
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Volkswagen is expected to explain in more details its impressive plan to build 2 to 3 million all-electric cars a year and unveil 30 new models by 2025. One of the first models will be unveiled at the 2016 Paris Motor show, which starts the first week of October, and VW released today a teaser for the vehicle.
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The Volkswagen Group has been increasing its efforts in the electric vehicle segment ever since the ‘DieselGate’ scandal. Mostly through its new mission to  build 2 to 3 million all-electric cars a year and unveil 30 new models by 2025.

Today, we learn that that the German automaker signed a joint venture memorandum of understanding with China’s Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Co. that would effectively allow VW to accelerate their production of electric vehicles by mass producing them in China as well as sharing technology with the local manufacturers to increase the amount of EVs in the country.

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Back in May, we shared a report from German newspaper Handelsblatt, which has often produced reliable insider reports on the German auto industry, citing insider sources saying that Volkswagen was about to present to its board of directors a plan to build a ‘multi-billion euro battery factory’.

In a new interview with the same newspaper this week, VW CEO Matthias Müller denies plans for the giant electric vehicle battery factory.
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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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A new research report from Lux Research looked into the projected growth of the battery sector for electric vehicles (BEVs and PHEVs) and concluded that the market will rise to $10 Billion in 2020 with six large carmakers led by Tesla accounting for 90% of the demand.
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