Gadgets and just Gadgets

One nice VW concept car

The SUB is concept and we may or may not see this get produced. I, for one, hope it does go into production because it’s frickin’ sweet. The rear-engine bus is the world’s first to have a high temperature fuel cell and 12 lithium-ion batteries. The electric motor (45kW/61PS) can handle up to 65 miles on one charge while a full hydrogen charge gets you 220 miles from where you start. Fueling up the SUB is done via an electrical outlet, hydrogen station or directly from the sun. That’s right, the VW SUB has a solar panel on its roof that feeds 150W into the battery. The high temperature fuel cell is far superior to anything else out on the market today because it weighs less, it’s cheaper, and is utilized better on a day-to-day basis.

The monitor in the center is 7-inches of touch screen goodness. It utilizes proximity sensors that react to certain gestures. To scroll through the menu you can either tap on each icon or do the swipe thing and the icons will begin to carousel. When you bring up the phone icon, you hover your hand towards the side and it brings up a cluster of your contacts pictures. Depending on which corner, I think, you hover your hand over it brings a different cluster up for you to choose from. The driver gets an 8-inch monitor that shows info like vehicle speed, battery reserves, hydrogen volume and range as well as album art.

Going back to the engine, the 45kW/61PS motor churns 10,000 times per minute and produces a maximum torque of 120 Newton-meters. Top speed on the bus is 75MPH and does 0-62MPH in 13.7-seconds. As a quick comparison, other hybrid cars can only go 1.24-miles on the battery alone. The SUB does 65 miles. Two tanks on the belly of the SUB store 3.3 kilograms of compressed hydrogen each.

Now we just sit and hope that this concept car will “hit the shelves” soon.

Tags: volkswagen, SUB, concept car, car, electric moto, VW