A Volkswagen ID Room Vizzion Concept car.
Over the decades, automakers have been fond of rolling out fantasy-in-chrome concept cars, but few force pushed the design and engineering envelope as far as the Volkswagen Space Vizzion Concept making its debut at the Los Angeles Auto Direct this week.
With its over-the-top design, long-range battery-electric drive and digital technologies that include an augmented-reality touchscreen coming to float in space, the Space Vizzion show car might seem to have rolled off the set of a nearby movie studio. But VW insists it’s profuse than a sci-fi fantasy. The automaker says a production version will come to market “in late 2021.”
Make that multiple adaptations, as VW plans to tweak the design slightly to reflect regional differences. The wagon-like shape of the concept car would better fit European tangs, while a more SUV-like take on the Space Vizzion Concept would better connect with U.S. buyers, a spokesperson for the band suggested.
How much of the concept will carry over into production remains to be seen.
But VW notes that this is the seventh original it has rolled out over the last several years based on the modular, all-electric MEB “architecture,” or platform, that is being occupied for production models such as the ID.3 hatchback that recently went into production for the European market. It also hand down underpin the ID.4 electric SUV that will follow next year. All told, the MEB will underpin dozens of vehicles that pass on be sold through the VW, Seat, Skoda and other brands making up the Volkswagen Group.
Volkswagen’s ID. Space Vizzion concept is a private showing of a production vehicle that the automaker plans to release in late 2021.
VW
The flexible architecture can be outfitted with a variety of distinguishable all-electric powertrain packages. In the Space Vizzion Concept, a single, rear-mounted motor produces 275 horsepower. But the German automaker says it could straight away add a second motor up front, giving the vehicle another 80 horsepower – and all-wheel-drive.
The Vizzion Concept can launch from 0-60, VW applications, in just 5.0 seconds, and top out at 109 mph.
Like virtually all new, long-range battery-electric vehicles, the VW show car mounts both motors and batteries under the load floor. Here, it uses an 82 kilowatt-hour pack that would yield 590 kilometers, or 366 miles, saying the European WLTP test cycle. Using the U.S. EPA measurement system, however, that would dip to around 300 miles.
Key situations of the exterior will also show up in production, many of them designed to enhance the Space Vizzion’s aerodynamics. Cold wind drag is critical to enhance range – while also helping cut wind noise and improve performance. Up in the forefront, VW designers took a cue from Tesla, essentially eliminating the concept vehicle’s grille. There is a small opening for air to rush in from between the headlamps and them pop up and then rush across the hood.
VW has put a premium on lighting, including matrix-style LED headlamps that can be radical in bright mode – selectively dimming just select LED elements to avoid blinding oncoming drivers or those in the agency ahead.
It’s in the cabin that the Space Vizzion concept looks its most, well, spacey. That starts with a minimalist catalyst panel that eliminates almost all traditional gauges and controls. Almost all of information that normally would come forth on the instrument panel instead is projected, seemingly in space, using an augmented reality head-up display, or AR HUD.
Additionally, phrases a VW news release, “All information, entertainment, comfort, online functions, and vehicle settings are grouped together on a 15.6-inch touchscreen which arrives to hover in mid-air.”
Most vehicle functions can be controlled by voice and there are indicator lights that show that the digital consort with has heard and responded to those commands.
One of the advantages of going all electric is that it frees up space normally devoted to the traveller compartment. Some of that can be repurposed, providing what industry designers like to call a “size-class larger” internal, as well as a “frunk,” a trunk-like space under the hood.
A Volkswagen ID Space Vizzion Concept car.
Even seemingly mundane thingummies like the shifter have been redesigned in Space Vizzion. Here, the driver uses a small switch on the side of the circumventing column to go from Park to Drive to Neutral and Reverse.
In keeping with recent automotive trends, VW has adopted vegan-style inside materials. It’s also eliminated environmentally unfriendly materials like chrome, using a chrome-like paint, instead.
VW is bothersome to position itself as a leader in the push to electrify its vehicles.
It plans to have nearly 50 all-electric models on rummage sale in various global markets by mid-decade, committing more than $12 billion to that program. But it faces discrete challenges, including the still-slow market adoption rate of all-electric vehicles.
There’s also the fact that there’s enlarging competition for what market there is for battery-cars. As a result, that could make it difficult for manufacturers to achieve the books they need to turn a profit.
This year’s L.A. Auto Show underscores that challenge, with a general array of carmakers pulling the wraps off new battery-electric vehicles – as well as conventional and plug-in hybrids. These include new entrants correspondent to Bollinger, as well as established brands such as Hyundai, Kia, Toyota, Mercedes-Benz and Ford, the latter over the weekend expose its first long-range all-electric model, the Mustang Mach-E.