After unveiling their new Volkswagen up! mini-car at the Frankfurt Motor Show last month, VW is set to show two more variants in the next month and a half. The Tokyo Motor Show at the end of October should see a small five door mini-van based on the up! which would be a spiritual successor to the old Micro-Bus. On this continent we should be getting a plug-in version of the car at the Los Angeles Auto Show in November. It’s not know at this point if this will be a straight battery electric car or a hybrid, but the former is far more likely because of the small size. An electric motor could be easily packaged in place of the rear engine and a compact lithium ion battery pack could go alongside it. Range would probably be very limited by the small battery size but we’ll see soon enough.
[Source: Automotive News – sub. req’d]