This is Volkswagen’s cute electric minivan

This is an electric Volkswagen minivan concept. It’s called the BUDD-e, and it is, you’ll agree, quite adorable.

It’s the firm’s keynote car at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, and the first car to be based on the all-new small-to-medium modular electric platform (dubbed MEB), designed specifically for plug-in vehicles. Vehicles that will, by the end of the decade, have a range comparable with today’s petrol cars. It'll form part of VW's new wave of electric cars.

Setting aside, um, that-which-shall-not-be-named for a moment, Volkswagen tells us the BUDD-e (a fresher take on the Bulli concept we saw years back) is a vision of electric mobility in the year 2019.

It’s powered by two electric motors, one on each axle powering all four wheels, with a flat 101kWh battery integrated into the floor of the van. When everything is hooked up, we’re promised a top speed of 93mph and a range of up to 373 miles on full charge. 

Of course, the point is the packaging of the platform. Things like the heating and air con integrated into the front of the car freeing up space, along with that low-fitted battery. And in the future, VW reckons such batteries will only take 15 minutes to get 80 per cent charge.

Size-wise, it slots in between the Touran and Multivan people carriers, and Volkswagen assures us the BUDD-e remains dynamic to drive. It quotes “agility, strong acceleration and handling that VW customers have come to expect”. 

And it looks like a van that could only have come from VW. There are LED lights and a V-shaped front referencing the original VW Microbus and Beetle, along with 21in alloys, flared D-pillars and lots of ambient light.

Being a concept, the dash is suitably futuristic. There’s a single 12.3in panel spanning the driver’s eye with three programmable sections. This incorporates the digital instrument cluster, nav, infotainment and drive information. 

BUDD-e’s systems can be controlled using gestures, a touchscreen or indeed, voice control. There are digital wing mirrors fed into multifunction displays (7.9in on the driver’s side, 5.9in on the passenger side). 

Oh, and a multifunction steering wheel, too. It does without switches, relying instead on haptic feedback (like in the Aston Vanquish). And this being a car fit for today’s connected world, BUDD-e is hooked up to the ‘Internet of Things’, allowing you to control, from the car, things in your home and office.

It’ll even remind you if you forget things in the car, and offers up an ‘easy open’ function where it projects a frickin’ laser footprint to help open hatches – and even your front door.

Aww.