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Recharge Wrap-up: VW Caddy TGI BlueMotion, VR tour of Tesla Model X

Take a 360-degree virtual tour of the Tesla Model X. Best viewed in the YouTube app on your smartphone, the video above - courtesy of Canadian Press Video News – allows you to look around the inside of the Model X as though you were sitting inside it. While you're viewing it, keep in mind Tesla CEO Elon Musk's words about virtual reality: "It's quite transformative. You really feel like you're there." See the video above, and read more at Teslarati. LG Chem's batteries for the 2017 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivan will be the Korean company's first time engineering and manufacturing a complete battery pack in Michigan for a volume production North American plug-in hybrid. The packs include lithium-ion cells, electronics and control units. The batteries were engineered at LG Chem's Troy, Michigan facility, and will be built at the company's Holland, Michigan plant. "Our experience with entire battery packs, including cell design and manufacturing capability, as well as our expertise in vehicle integration, makes us the ideal battery supplier for the Pacifica Hybrid," says LGCPI CEO Denise Gray. "We believe our technical strengths, engineering and manufacturing expertise, position us as a leading battery and control system provider for electric vehicles today and in the future." Read more at Green Car Congress. Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles will debut its Caddy TGI BlueMotion van at the Geneva Motor Show. The van, which is suited to family, taxi or city delivery use, can run on CNG or bio-natural gas in addition to gasoline. It also features a six-speed DSG dual-clutch transmission – a first in its class. The multiple high-pressure tanks for compressed gas are located under the floor, preserving all the Caddy's precious cargo space. A TGI version of the Caddy Alltrack will also be available, initially with a six-speed manual transmission, with the DSG option arriving in the middle of 2016. Read more at Green Car Congress, and in the press release below.

VW Golf GTI wrung out by Chris Harris

Enthusiasts like nothing more than to crucify modern interpretations of their favorite performance models for failing to live up to some imagined ethos. Even the Volkswagen GTI has suffered its fair share of slings and arrows for growing in size and curb weight. Chris Harris recently spent some time with the all-new MK VII GTI to find out if growing up means giving up on what makes the machine so special.
Judging by his comments, Harris certainly doesn't think so. Yes, the new GTI is considerably more comfortable than its predecessors, but that's hardly a bad thing. The multitude of driving modes actually seem to add depth to the car rather than simply try to force one tool to do many jobs, and Harris even finds the machine's electronic power steering tolerable. As a result, Harris goes so far as to call the Volkswagen GTI "one of the best cars to actually own." How's that for high praise? You can watch the video for yourself by scrolling below.

VW chair says component cost decrease keeps him confident of EV success

Volkswagen AG is in the middle of implementing a comprehensive electric vehicle strategy, one that we've been documenting for a long time. The Group stands ready to offer dozens of plug-in vehicles in the coming years if it feels there is sufficient demand and believes that selling a million EVs in Germany by 2020 is reasonable. That would be a solid number, but remember that VW sold over 5,923,000 passenger cars around the world last year, and the group as a whole sold over 9.7 million. At the company's annual Media Conference and Investor Conference in Berlin recently, the chairman of the board of VW AG - surrounded by some decidedly non-green examples of the VW Group's vehicles (some absurd new Bugatti, for example) - took some time to put the company's EV plans into focus. The upshot is that Dr. Martin Winterkorn is still guiding his electromobility ship into new waters, saying that "many more [plug-in] models will follow." Winterkorn said there are three main reasons he is confident in the ability of VW (and Audi and Porsche, at the very least) to push EV sales upward. Batteries are getting better, he said, and if the ranges can be extended, then customers are happy. But the real secret lies in reducing component costs. He said (as translated): It is important to look at the cost of the components: the battery technology, the electric motor and the electric components. Whenever you go into volume production, you of course have economies of scale. In two to three years' time, if we are able to achieve the goals we are setting for ourselves with cost and reach sufficient volume, I do believe that we can achieve two to three percent [market share] within VW Group. So, hitting a million EVs by 2020 is reachable. With the e-Golf and the e-Up off to excellent sales starts, we're willing to be confident as well.