Futuristic Volkswagen Cross Coupe Concept unveiled

The Volkswagen Cross Coupe is a concept SUV being showcased at the Tokyo Motor Show this year. Volkswagen say that the Cross Coupe is an SUV concept of the future. In essence the Cross Coupe Concept is a crossover between a four door coupe and an SUV. The Cross Coupe is based on VW’s new ‘modular transverse matrix’ or in short MQB platform. At 4,345 mm the Cross Coupe Concept is longer than a VW Golf hatchback but shorter than VW Tiguan crossover. This means that the Cross Coupe Concept will fall under the compact SUV segment which is a market that is currently doing very.

At the front the Cross Coupe Concept features current Volkswagen design cues that have been given a bold treatment with horizontal lines, new headlamps and a new grille. While the Cross Coupe Concept has been designed more for the urban environment it still comes with decent ground clearance and with its 24.2 degrees approach angle upfront and 32.5 degrees at the back the car should be brave enough to stray off the tarmac.

Of course, keeping with the times and this being a concept the car tries its hardest at being environmentally friendly. The Cross Coupe Concept gets two electric motors (one at the front and one at the back) which generate 40 kW / 180 Nm of torque and 85 kW / 270 Nm respectively. The car also gets a direct injection turbocharged petrol engine developing 265PS of power which takes the car from standstill to 100 km/h in 7 seconds and onwards to a top speed of 200 km/h. Oh, and VW say that the car can travel 40km on pure electricity provided by the two electric motors.

But the really clever bit is the electric drive shaft which uses power from the engine upfront to send power to the rear electric motor in order to power the back wheels of the car. This means that a traditional drive shaft which takes up space in the centre tunnel of the car is not required.  The free space is then used to store the lithium ion battery thus improving the weight distribution of the hybrid. Volkswagen says that this allows the all-wheel drive car to feature coupe like driving dynamics.

The Cross Coupe Concept from Volkswagen is a good showcase on what VW is working towards for their future range of SUVs and the kind of technology they will incorporate on their cars in the future.

Slideshow: