Car companies usually keep dirty press people like me far away from concept cars with velvet ropes, but VW was willing to let me get my grubby paws on their new electric and high-temperature fuel cell car, the space up! blue. The lack of caps was done on purpose, because everyone knows they have a bigger carbon footprint. The high-temperature fuel cell uses hydrogen as fuel, so you can get up to 220 zero-emission miles out of it if you live anywhere near a hydrogen fueling station. If you don't, you can still get 60 miles or so out of the 12 lithium ion batteries in the back of the vehicle. There's even a solar panel on the top for maximum tree hugging credibility.
The inside is extremely roomy considering how small the whole package is, but the real draw, at least for me, was the navigation system in the dash. The rumors of a VW and Apple collabo have been well documented, but the toughscreen interface on this thing looks like it could really use some of that sweet multi-touch goodness. Is this the future iCar? Probably not, but there is some potential. Check out the video to see what I mean and don't get creeped out by the silence. The engineer doing the demo didn't want to be on camera so he wouldn't take credit away from his fellow team members. Those Germans are so courteous.
On a side note, it's called the space up! blue because apparently the rest of the world uses "blue" instead of "green" when they're talking about things that are environmentaly friendly. Go figure.
