AUTOS

VW to unveil electric version of hippie-era microbus in March

Stefan Nicola
Bloomberg
View Comments

Volkswagen will unveil the ID. Buzz, an electric iteration of its iconic hippie-era microbus, March 9.

Chief Executive Officer Herbert Diess announced the date Thursday in a Twitter post that sketched out the contours of the new design, which draws on the lines of the original model.

VW's original microbus — the colorful, bread loaf-shaped van that was a regular sight in the 1960s at music festivals including Woodstock — has a dedicated fan following. The German company previously said it plans to sell its battery-powered successor in Europe and the U.S.

Herbert Diess, then head of the VW brand and member of the board of management at Volkswagen, speaks during an event at the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas with a photo of its iconic, hippie-era Microbus in the background. The German automaker will unveil an electric version of the vehicle March 9.

VW has embarked on an ambitious push to dethrone Tesla as the global electric-car sales leader. The German company last month allocated 89 billion euros ($100 billion) to EV and software development over the next half decade and has built a dedicated architecture that will underpin 27 battery-powered models by the end of this year.

View Comments