You’re lying to yourself if you think you weren’t at least the slightest bit excited for Volkswagen to remake their iconic bus. Sure, aside from Die Hard 2 and Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey, it’s usually a safe bet that anything after the original is going to disappoint. One could even argue more than one of VW’s facelifts since the classic’s flat faced, two-toned, “how many windows can we fit on one vehicle” style suffered an underwhelming fate on par with Saved by the Bell: The College Years. But Volkswagen’s bus is a massive piece of surf history on its own, so for that very reason, last year’s announcement that the manufacturer would revive the bus was awesome news. The plan was to reveal a concept car at this month’s Consumer Electronics Show and begin production in 2017. What we have now is equal parts cool and disappointing wrapped into one moment.
For starters, the Volkswagen BUDD-e should be on the market by 2019, by which point we will absolutely have flying cars and true hoverboards, anyway. The new “bus” doesn’t have the classic flat faced style or a dozen windows wrapping around the body of the body, which takes away from its charm right off the bat. The BUDD-e does, however, give a nod to the old bench seats inside and enough open space to turn the thing into a mobile sleeping bag. So in that sense, we still have the makings of a true surf wagon.
As for the technical details of the future model, the most impressive highlight might just be how quick the all-electric bus can charge and hit the road. The company said BUDD-e will get an 80 percent charge after just 15 minutes, and with a range of 373 miles on a full charge, it does make a decent case for serving as a road trip machine. But the real show off moments at CES clearly weren’t geared toward attracting the old school wave hunters and hippies. Honestly, the coolest features of the BUDD-e are the random and most futuristic. For example, you can open the doors and control the dashboard features Darth Vader style (seriously). Volkswagen is calling it the first car in “the Internet of Things” (IoT). Basically, they’re connecting your car to the cloud and any other smartphone, tablet or laptop you use in your day to day functions. It’s not the same old surf mobile/bus/wagon that’s been popular for the last 60 years, but then again how could they ever live up to the classic?
