At a Concours d’Elegance event scheduled to take place on Amelia Island, Florida, Volkswagen USA will be exhibiting an exotic and experimental bus named the Elektrotransporter.
The company came up with a battery vehicle following a series of fuel crises of the 1970s and the subsequent bump in gasoline prices. Automobile manufacturers everywhere started looking for ways to minimize fuel consumption or abandon fossil fuel altogether.
Volkswagen took the iconic Type 2 model (see video) for experiments and shipped ten units to the authorities of the State of Tennessee. One of these units has now returned to the Volkswagen HQ. The company does not specify the details about that project, but, seeing how its first EVs only emerged onto the mass market now, the experiment was not a success.
Power came from 24 Siemens batteries that were put inside the floor, raising it considerably. The range maxed out at 40 kilometers, or 25 miles. A single 23-kW electric motor was installed where the IC engine once was, which was at the rear axle of the RWD bus. The original transmission was used for reduction, but the company only left the second gear in place, so that the driver could only use two pedals. Configured like this, the EV could accelerate up to 77 km/h (48 mph).