VW teases EV concept that it says heralds 'new era' for brand

Volkswagen today released teaser pictures of an electric car that it hopes will lead the automaker out of its diesel scandal and into an electrified future.

The near-production concept previews a compact EV with a long range that VW brand is expected to launch early 2018 or 2019.

The EV will have a distinctive design to differentiate it from VW’s non-electric cars.

The production version will be the first VW to enter the market based on the automaker's new MEB (modular electrification kit) platform, the company said in a statement.

VW did not reveal any more information ahead of the concept's debut at the Paris auto show later this month. The concept "signals VW brand's entry into a new era," it said. "The vehicle is as revolutionary as the Beetle was seven decades ago," VW said.

Last month VW brand CEO Herbert Diess told the German news magazine WirtschaftsWoche that the EV will be the size of a Golf compact hatchback but with the interior space of the Passat midsize car. The extra room comes from the way the batteries have been packaged in the floor of the car.

It will have a range on a single charge of 400km (250 miles) to 480km (300 miles), reports say.

VW’s future EVs will include a subcompact SUV, a coupe and a successor to the Phaeton sedan, Diess told the magazine. Earlier this year VW said it would also build the BUDD-e concept minivan that was unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in January.

The 12-brand VW Group plans to launch more than 30 fully electric cars by 2025, Group CEO Matthias Mueller told shareholders in June. By then the group expects to be selling 2 million to 3 million pure-electric vehicles a year, about 25 percent of all sales, he said. Future EV models include two Tesla fighters -- Porsche's Mission E electric car and the Audi e-tron quattro, the brand's first mass production EV.

VW brand currently sells EV versions of its Golf compact hatchback and Up minicar but high prices and range anxiety deter buyers. European sales of both models slumped in the first half, with the e-Golf dropping 38 percent to 3,799 and the e-Up by 19 percent to 1,343 according to figures from data analysts JATO Dynamics.