Volkswagen Up! 2012 News

The radical new Volkswagen Up! has moved a step closer to the road with the unveiling of the third member of the concept car team created to test its future with customers. The Space Up! Blue was revealed at the Los Angeles Auto Show after the original city hatch and a baby wagon previewed at last month's Tokyo event.This time there is a double-edged Up! message about compact people-movers and the potential for green family motoring. The Blue car is inspired by the 1950s Kombi and is called the Samba Bus, but it is truly 21st century; with power from a pioneering high-temperature fuel cell charging 12 lithium-ion batteries.Volkswagen says the hydrogen-fuelled power pack is used only to provide current for the battery pack, which powers the rear wheels.So it is a fully electric car with a top speed of 120km/h and can cover the benchmark 0-100km/h sprint in 13.7 seconds. It also has a bank of solar cells on the roof for extra charging and is claimed to have a range of up to 350km.“We are open to trying things that are a little bit different,” Volkswagen Group Australia managing director Jutta Dierks says. “This is the environmentally friendly model in the Up! family. They all focus on different needs.”She has no news on a production plan for any of the Up! concepts, despite the money invested in them and the interest they have generated.“I strongly believe one version, or maybe even all of them, will be produced. But I honestly do not know what is happening,” she says.Dierks knows Volkswagen is looking for a way to make a workable and profitable city car that takes the company back to its roots in the original Beetle; not in design, but in price and the efficiency of the basic package. Volkswagen hopes to have an Up! on the road by 2010. 

Indian company Tata has unveiled plans to build a people's car that will cost $2800 while carmakers Renault and Nissan are seriously looking at a vehicle around $3500.Renault already has the mass-production Logan car, which sells below $10,000 in Europe.Meanwhile, analysts say Toyota, Hyundai and Chinese automaker Chery are also looking to make ultra-cheap cars in India.However, Tata has been criticised by green advocates who say its car would simply add to traffic chaos and carbon emission, a claim Tata chairman Ratan Tata vehemently refutes.He says his company will bring what is billed as “the people's car” to market next year and its price will be on target, despite a sharp rise in the price of steel and other inputs since the project announcement three years ago. Details or pictures of the car have not yet been released.Carmakers from around the world are keenly watching progress in the Tata project, which analysts say could set new price benchmarks and force other manufacturers to follow suit.But environment groups say the low price will bring the car within the reach of millions of Indians, triggering more pollution and burdening the country's crumbling infrastructure.However, Tata says his car will adhere to strict quality norms like any car in the developed world. He adds: “We will have less pollution per vehicle than any other vehicle in the country today”, indicating that pollution levels will be close to that of two-wheelers.He acknowledges there will be more congestion, but says the answer is in building more and better infrastructure rather than asking car makers to roll back production.Meanwhile, David Cole, chairman of the US Centre for Automotive Research, says a small car with a small engine is likely to pollute less than one with a large engine.But a clean car in India likely would not meet US Environmental Protection Agency pollution limits, he says.“Most of the developing countries, their emissions standards are just sort of getting cranked up now. The baseline is not very difficult to surpass,” he says.Tata says he is curious as to why his low-cost car catering to the aspirations of average Indians is being singled out for criticism.Earlier, there was scepticism that the company could stick to the price target and now it is facing “flak for a different set of reasons”, he says.The company plans to make between 250,000 and 500,000 units a year, Tata says. The base model will cost 100,000 rupees ($3000), but there will be two more variants at a higher price with added features.Keeping fuel options flexible, including the use of ethanol, is also being considered, he says.The project has spurred other global carmakers to explore similar ventures. Already, Renault and its partner, Nissan, are trying to determine if they can sell a compact car for around $3500.VW, meanwhile, unveiled its Up! concept at the Frankfurt motor show this year, a van-like Space up! concept at the Tokyo Motor Show and a Blue up! concept at this month's Los Angeles motor show.The up! concepts are aimed at reviving the low-priced people's car philosophy of the original VW Beetle.VW says development of production versions are underway.It is expecting to have up!s on the road within the next three years.German auto consulting firm CSM Worldwide says the new Tata could help Tata Motors emerge as India's largest manufacturer of cars and light trucks by the year 2013.

Just a week after US President George W. Bush told a Sydney media conference about how battery cars that didn't look like golf carts were being developed, the real things were displayed at the world's largest motoring show.General Motors showed off its Flextreme from its European subsidiary Opel. It's a small commuter car with an electric-diesel hybrid that can travel 55km on a single charge before switching to fuel. It is a concept car, meaning it may or may not go into production.Volvo will also unveil its plug-in hybrid concept at the show. Called the Recharge and based on its C30 hatchback, it uses four separate electric motors to power each wheel, augmenting a 1.6-litre four-cylinder Flexifuel engine.Meanwhile, Volvo said a fully charged model can travel about 100km before it needs to be recharged. And it is not a slug. It can reach 0-100km/h in nine seconds on the way to a top speed of 160km/h.VW is claiming fuel consumption of as little as three litres per 100km for its spiritual successor to the original people's car, the Beetle.The Up concept is a miniature four-seat city car powered by a rear-mounted two or three cylinder engine,  the first rear-engined car VW has made since the original Beetle. VW said the car would be low-priced and a fuel miser. It has claimed 3.5litres/100km with a target of reducing that to less than 3litres/100 km.That's better than Australia's current best the Toyota Prius hybrid at 4.4litres/100km, the Citroen C4 diesel at 4.5litres/100km and the Honda Civic Hybrid at 4.6litres/100km.It is also better than the new-age Fiat 500, which will have a diesel model with a claimed consumption of 4.2litres/100km and the next generation Smart car.VW boss Dr Martin Winterkorn said: “This is VW reinventing the Volkswagen. It is what the brand stands for — mobility for everyone.”Dr Winterkorn said show visitors' reaction to the car would decide whether the Up goes into full production.Volkswagen Group Australia managing director Jutta Dierks said: “If the philosophy stays the same as it was for the original Beetle, to be a car affordable to everyone, then it will certainly be a good fit into our market.” Volkswagen Up2 or 3-cylinder engine Fuel economy of 3.5l per 100km.Available in 2011.GM FiextremeElectric-diesel hybrid.Can travel 55km on battery power before switching over to diesel fuel. Volvo RechargeFour electric motors plus a 1.6-litre four-cylinder engine.Can travel 100km on battery power before re-charge needed.Top speed of 160km/h.