Word Up!: Volkswagen welcomes new five-door Up! to the family

By Amir Iliaifar Published January 24, 2012

If you’re a big fan of Volkswagen’s small-car line up and you live in Europe, then you’re in luck. The German automaker recently announced that it plans to make a production version of its five-door Up!. Volkswagen’s latest car will be available in Germany and European markets by early March and by summer, respectively.

The five-door Up! will be available in either a 60-horsepower, 1.0-liter three-cylinder engine or a 75-horespower version of the same powerplant which is similar to the three-door version currently available.

Exterior-wise, the new five-door Up! will retain much of the same features of its three-door sibling. From what we can tell, the only major stylistic change to the five-door Up! is the addition of two extra doors and a solid glass rear hatch, which adds some much appreciated flair to the diminutive hatchback.

Amir Iliaifar

Associate Automotive Editor

Associate Automotive Section Editor for Digital Trends, Amir Iliaifar covers the ever increasing cross-section between tech…

Topics

Photo Galleries

Cars

Volkswagen ID. Buzz prototype first drive: Here comes your van

This is it -- this is the EV that we've been waiting for. It's the production version of the Volkswagen ID.Buzz concept, which is called ID. Buzz (mind the gap, as the Brits say), and it's a modern spin on the emblematic, rear-engined Bus that zig-zagged across America for decades. This 21st-century hippie van hasn't been fully unveiled yet, we won't see it without the psychedelic camouflage until March 9, but I traveled to England to spend time behind the wheel of a pre-production model and get a better idea of whether the wait and the hype were worth it.

Cars

2021 Volkswagen ID.4 AWD first drive review: Gaining traction

A 2021 Volkswagen ID.4 AWD front three quarter view.

Volkswagen launched the 2021 ID.4 electric car earlier this year with an ambitious mission: To take on popular gasoline crossover SUVs like the Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV4 in a bid to capture the heart of the new-car market. However, the ID.4 was missing one thing.

One of the main reasons buyers choose crossovers over sedans and hatchbacks is the availability of all-wheel drive. At launch, the ID.4 didn’t have that. VW said an all-wheel-drive ID.4 was on the way, though, and now the wait is over.

Cars

Inside the lab teaching Volkswagen’s born-again Bus how to drive itself

volkswagen unveils argo ai powered id buzz ad electric van

Previewed by the heritage-laced ID.Buzz concept, Volkswagen's born-again Bus will arrive in 2022 with a few cool tech tricks up its sleeve. It will be fully electric, it will ride on the MEB architecture already found under the EVs like the ID.3 and the ID.4, and it will spawn an autonomous shuttle scheduled to start carrying passengers in 2025. Argo A.I. is helping Volkswagen teach the Bus how to drive itself, and Digital Trends got an inside look at the project.

Volkswagen unveiled the first ID.Buzz-based prototype on the sidelines of the 2021 Munich auto show. Fully draped in camouflage to mask its final design, the van is fitted with an armada of sensors, radars, cameras, microphones, and lidars that paint a digital picture of the world around it. Argo A.I. — which Volkswagen and Ford jointly own a stake in — argues its technology is highly advanced: its lidar can detect and avoid potholes by scanning the road surface, and it can see objects that are about 1,300 feet away, even if they're dark (like a black car). Powering this hardware requires tremendous computing power, several backup systems, and a mammoth amount of data.

Editors’ Recommendations