VW space up!

“The largest small VW’ is how the German carmaker describes its space up! Concept which was unveiled at the Tokyo Motorshow recently. The model was a continuation of the up! concept – part of VW’s ‘New Small Family’ - which was shown at the Frankfurt Motorshow earlier which, according to Dr. Ulrich Hackenberg, Head of Technical Development. Volkswagen’s chief engineer, received positive feedback.

The space up! is certainly a small space wonder; exploiting every millimetre of its 3.68 metres of overall length and 1.63 metres of width, it offers the space of a considerably larger vehicle. The clever space concept of the space up! is to a great extent attributable to its engine layout which has the powerplant located in the rear. Incidentally, the space up! Is 150 mm shorter than the Fox, presently the smallest production VW model.

Space up! and up! (right) concepts are the first models in VW's New Small Family line which will be introduced in the next few years

Said Walter de Silva, Chief Designer of the VW Group: “In formal design terms, one can see that the space up! is fun and at the same time offers maximum space on the smallest of platforms. Our ‘New Small Family’ brings a smile back to the road. At the same time, it is apparent at first glance that despite all of the emotionality of this car we avoided superfluous gimmicks of any kind. This has created a very straight-lined and confident design.”

In contrast to the two-door up!, the space up! has four doors… in actuality, there are even six. That is because the van concept does not have a classic tailgate but instead uses a 2-part rear door. Hidden behind this door are 220 to 1,005 litres of cargo space, four seat positions that are multivariable in design, and an exceptionally innovative cockpit concept. Numerous functions are controlled via a touch­screen with 3D graphics and proximity sensors.

Volkswagen is introducing the space up! as the second model variant of the ‘New Small Family’ which has a common design philosophy. The cars are characterized by a simple, clear language of forms. Distinguishing the front end of the ‘New Small Family’ are the headlamps that take an inward diagonal line, between them the horizontally integrated air inlets (minimized aperture optimizes aerodynamics), the VW logo arranged on the front hood (as the only exterior detail kept in chrome) and the smooth-surfaced bumper with a lower segment.
 

On its sides, the concept car has a long extended window section and a clearly distinctive, powerful C-pillar whose form is typical of Volkswagen. The A-pillar is positioned far forward and the space between the A and C pillars is spanned by the line of butterfly doors with opposing hinges. Both the front and rear doors are opened by door handles at the height of the B pillars. Since they open in opposite directions and extend across nearly the entire space between the wheel housings – ie the entire sill length – all four seating positions are exceptionally convenient to access.

A key concept here is wheel housings: hidden under them are large 18-inch wheels with 165/50 tyres. Distinctive in this area are the short front and rear overhangs. The front overhang, from the axle hub to the outer skin of the bumper measures just 530 mm and in the rear it is 590 mm.

Also of note are the design features of the rear end, one example being the transparent 30:70 rear door which fills out practically the entire car area above the bumper. Fully opened, the door offers a cargo width of 1010mm. The bumper itself was designed to match its counterpart at the front end.

Thanks to the wide track width of 1420 mm, the outer edges of the wheels are in line with the wheel housings. The effect is that the entire vehicle width of 1630 mm seems to consist of axles plus tyres and wheels. Meanwhile, the only details that boldly jump outside of the vehicle width are the round-shaped outside mirror.

The space up! is a full-fledged 4-seater. In the rear, a bench seat is implemented with two integrated child seats. To convert them from adult to childseats, the seating surfaces are simply folded over and two shoulder supports are folded out on each side. The cushions of the four seats consist of an airflow foam that automatically adapts to individual anatomies, enhancing comfort. In addition, the seating position is pleasantly high, making it extremely comfortable.

Rear-located engine contributes to better space utilisation	Dashboard will have a common design for New Small Family models

With the exception of the driver’s seat, all seats can also be folded and removed. If the seats are “only” folded, this creates a level cargo area with a capacity of up to 1,005 litres and with 4 people on board, the cargo capacity up to window level height is still 220 litres. Since the low-profile engine of the space up! is located in the rear, objects with a maximum length of 2.8 metres can be stowed in a pass-through to the front cargo space.

The car’s cockpit was conceived as a module to be applied across all models of the ‘New Small Family’, with slight modifications to suit different needs. It is said to be ‘a cockpit with a great future’. It has various displays, among them an 8-inch monitor showing vehicle speed, fuel level and range as well as momentary CO2 emissions (presumably to keep the driver aware of what he/she is doing to the environment!). There is also a 7-inch monitor which shows how future human-machine interfaces might look and operate and here, all conceivable functions are controlled via a touchscreen that – using proximity sensors – reacts to specific hand movements.

Recognizing that in the transitional period in the near-term where there will still be drivers who are not familiar with today’s menu systems used by computer applications, VW’s designers was ‘retooled’ and reorganized the menuing system so that such people would be able to operate the system. The developers intentionally separated “display” and “control” levels from one another. Always shown on the screen is a control bar with standard functions such as climate control or audio volume control.

Engineers from China gave a lot of attention to the space up! displayed in Tokyo

Functions of other higher-order systems – navigation, telephone, radio, Internet, images, films, etc. – are ‘packaged’ on a display level that has been referred to internally as the “main menu carousel” – a type of virtual carousel. It consists of the icons of different system functions (telephone, navigation, etc.). When the user touches the “main menu carousel”, it can be rotated by touchscreen. Visually, this control is just as spectacular as it is intuitive, a VW designer said. When the desired function appears on the main menu carousel – such as the telephone – the user just needs to move his/hand to the display to switch to the telephone menu, thanks to proximity sensor technology.

VW revealed that this control concept is already fairly advanced in development and the first Volkswagen customers might be able to enjoy this new generation of intuitive controls by the end of the decade. As for a vehicle like the space up! itself, the concept car on display looked like it could be put on the assembly lines in Wolfsburg or even China tomorrow…