Alter your Mindset: Electric German city car gets first drive

Click above for gallery of the Mindset electric car

Looking to all the world like the modern reinterpretation of the classic Karmann Ghia body shell with the addition of a shooting brake-style rear hatch is a new electric car concept from Swedish automaker Mindset. Unlike that rear-engined machine based on the seminal Volkswagen Beetle, Mindset's first car has a fully modern drivetrain in the form of a 94-horsepower electric motor with an accompanying lithium-ion battery pack that's reportedly capable of offering an electric-only range of over 100 miles per six-hour charge. Need to go further? A single-cylinder gasoline-fed engine is also present to extend the car's range.

Besides the intriguing shape of the passenger compartment, which features spindly 22-inch wheels that look like they came off of a carbon-fiber stagecoach, we also dig the minimalist interior design with its front and rear benches that could have come straight out of a Beetle from the 1930s. All of these Volkswagenesque hints may be intentional – the man behind the Mindset EV, Murat Gunak, was previously the head of design at the German marque, most notably for the recent Scirocco revival. Drivable prototypes are already invading the streets in Germany, and if the company gets adequate funding, Gunak hopes to sell 10,000 units in the first year of production for 50,000 euros ($65K) each.


[Source: Auto Bild]

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