VW is actually building its BUDD-e concept

A little while back, we told you about the BUDD-e concept that Volkswagen unveiled at the Cosumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas back in January. Well the embattled carmaker this week announced plans to actually build out.

Built to be a contemporary replacement for the German company’s legendary microbus, the BUDD-e is built on a new Modular Electric Platform (MEB) designed specifically for plug-in vehicles and built with the Internet of Things firmly in mind.

Originally designed to show what will be possible in the next three to four years, when it anticipates that electric cars will have a range on par with that of their petrol counterparts and will be capable of achieving 80% battery charge in 15 minutes.

According to Car Magazine, the microbus will exist in a number of forms and will be out on the roads by 2020.

During an interview, the company’s head of electric development Volkmar Tenneberger said “[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 and Transporter 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”.

Then again, we should probably have seen that VW was interested in making the BUDD-e a reality. After all, when it was unveiled at CES, Volkswagen did so with details — including battery size and power — that you don’t typically find on futuristic concepts.