Head designer Klaus Bischoff explains why VW's futuristic self-driving electric van has a retro look Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess has confirmed on Twitter that the production version of the Microbus-inspired ID.Buzz electric van will be debuted on March 9. The production VW ID.Buzz has been teased wearing a psychedelic disguise. Volkswagen hasn't released details on the reveal event, but recently displayed a prototype of the vehicle done up in a psychedelic wrap to disguise its finer features. The ID.Buzz prototype show car leaned heavily into the retro look. Full details on the ID.Buzz have not been revealed, but it will be offered in retail and commercial versions with either rear-wheel-drive like the original Microbus or all-wheel-drive and a driving range of up to 300 miles per charge.

A new study has found that using delivery drones in dense urban environments might actually consume more energy than a conventional delivery van. Thomas Kirschstein, an economist at Martin Luther University in Halle-Wittenberg, Germany, developed a simulation to compare how energy efficient different delivery methods would be in a large and crowded city. He compared a delivery drone, electric van, and diesel van as they traveled through a digital recreation of Berlin to see which required the least amount of fossil fuel to complete equivalent delivery routes. The clear winner were electric vans, which consumed more than 50 percent less energy than diesel vans. The biggest surprise, however, came from drones, which turned out to be the most energy hungry of all the delivery methods, consuming as much as 10 times the amount of energy that the electric vans did.

Volkswagen has unveiled the electric van that's a key part of its MOIA autonomous vehicle ride-sharing service. The van-pooling MOIA service will launch in Hamburg in 2018 with 200 vans, letting passengers enter a departure point and destination in an app. "We've set ourselves the goal of taking more than a million cars off the roads in Europe and the USA by 2025," said MOIA CEO Ole Harms. MOIA's aim is to eventually put autonomous, purpose-built vehicles on the road without drivers. At Disrupt, the company said that the business can still be profitable without the need for autonomous operation. MOIA also revealed more details about the ride-pooling service, including pricing.

The original's rattly, rear-mounted petrol engine and its charming back-to-basics features have been swapped for green electric motors and a host of hi-tech electronic gadgets. A Volkswagen spokesman said: 'While the driver relaxes, laser scanners, ultrasonic and radar sensors and cameras monitor other road users and the surroundings.' But in advance of changes to the law to allow self-driving cars, there's also an automatic'lounge mode' that kicks in when the operator decides to let the car drive itself in'autonomous pilot mode' (concept image) Range on a full charge is around 373 miles with 80 per cent of the battery replenished in just half an hour's charge, the company says (concept image) Acceleration from nought to 60mph takes just five seconds but top speed is restricted to 99mph. A Volkswagen spokesman said: 'While the driver relaxes, laser scanners, ultrasonic and radar sensors and cameras monitor other road users and the surroundings' (concept image)