Volkswagen to Add Small Electric Car to its Lineup in 2013

While ‘advanced diesel’ might come to mind when thinking Volkswagen these days, the automaker’s portfolio is much more than that. Electric cars are also in the works. Now center stage is Volkswagen’s so-called New Small Family of three- and five-door hatchbacks scheduled for production in 2011. These models evolved from a series of three Up! concept cars that made the auto show circuit several years back (the Space Up! Blue concept is shown here). Now, the new VW small car is set to make another large evolutionary leap: electric power by 2013, making it the company’s first electric vehicle.

That’s the major announcement VW chief executive Martin Winterkorn made during a recent speech in Munich outlining the company’s outlook. Even as this exciting announcement was made, Winterkorn cautioned that the drive to electric vehicles is a marathon rather than a sprint, and pointed to the substantial hype that now surrounds just about any news about the technology.

We couldn’t agree more. While battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids dominate news in the ‘green’ arena, battery issues still need to be sorted out before these cars truly become affordable mass market products. This is an especially vexing problem for all-electric cars that depend solely on on-board battery power without the aid of a combustion drive engine or engine-generator, since much larger and more powerful battery packs are required. VW’s timing of an introduction in 2013 presumably allows additional time for battery costs to come down.

While Winterkorn did not disclose details of the coming VW electric car, his speech did provide some insight into the customer expectations that the company is striving to meet. Electric vehicle drivers want a range of nearly 500 miles, a charging time of one to two hours with the option for partial quick-charges, and a price premium of no more than 2,000 Euros, or $2,785, says Winterkorn.

Considering all the electric vehicles now being developed or discussed, those specs simply can’t be met at this point in time by any automaker. If VW is able to deliver such an electric powered vehicle at an affordable price point some four years down the road, then it will certainly be playing to its historic strength in providing affordable, and green, ‘People’s Cars’ for the masses.