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VW V-Charge is clever automated EV parking, charging tech

Automated parking is another niche that Volkswagen wants to rule, so the German carmaker has teamed up with five technology partners to develop its V-Charge system. In short, V-Charge allows an owner to use a smartphone app to send his car to find a parking space and return when requested. If it's an electric car, it will search for an open inductive charging spot, and when fully charged it won't squat over the charger, but will move to find a conventional parking spot. Valet Charge uses four wide-angle cameras, three stereo cameras, 12 ultrasonic sensors, and car-to-infrastructure protocols to avoid obstacles as it finds its way around, including areas like parking garages where GPS won't work. VW says it's been careful to use off-the-shelf sensors and technologies that are already installed in current cars, since it has an eye on near-term implementation of V-Charge. It's impossible to know what "near-term" means, but the sooner we can avoid the valet and trust our car to fetch a spot and come back to us like a faithful pet, the better. The video above shows it at work, the press release below has all the details. 'V-Charge': Volkswagen pushes development of automated parking and charging of electric vehicles - Parking spaces driven to fully automatically - Electric vehicles charged automatically - V-Charge places only minor demands on car park infrastructure - Intelligent form of valet parking Volkswagen aspires to holding the leading position in the field of automated parking. A look into the near future of automated parking is given by 'V-Charge', an EU research project, in which six national and international partners are jointly developing new technologies. Its focus is on automating the search for a parking space and on the charging of electric vehicles. The best part about it is that the vehicle not only automatically looks for an empty parking space, but that it finds an empty space with charging infrastructure and inductively charges its battery. Once the charging process is finished, it automatically frees up the charging bay for another electric vehicle and looks for a conventional parking space. 'V-Charge' stands for Valet Charge and is pointing the way to the future of automated parking. Wolfsburg, 14 July 2015 - In the USA especially, convenient valet parking is a big hit: you pull up in your car right outside your destination, valet service personnel park it for you and have it brought around again as and when you need it.

2015 Volkswagen Golf: Green Car of the Year?

As you may recall, VW's compact Golf was voted 2015 North American Car of the Year by a jury of 57 veteran automotive journalists (including this one) and named Car of the Year by Motor Trend and Yahoo Autos and Best Car to Buy 2015 by Green Car Reports. "The range of green options in the 2015 Volkswagen Golf range is hard to beat," says Green Car Reports editor John Voelcker. "With more fuel-efficient gasoline engines, a new TDI diesel option that comes close to real-world hybrid mileage levels, and the all-electric VW e-Golf, the 2015 Golf gives buyers a good-better-best menu of options for driving green." The car was also a finalist for Green Car Journal's "Green Car of the Year," but ultimately lost to the BMW i3 EV. When I saw GCJ editor Ron Cogan at last November's Los Angeles Auto Show, he asked me to guess which finalist would win. Based on its efficiency and versatility, I guessed the Golf. He smiled but the next day, he named the i3 the winner. Okay, the technically impressive, carbon-fiber-bodied i3 is a formidable green machine wearing a prestige German label at a semi-affordable ($43,000) price. But it comes in just one (somewhat odd-looking) body style with a choice of all-electric or range-extending electric powertrains, and its EPA-official ranges are 81 miles for the former and just 150 for the latter, costlier version, which totes a tiny (647cc) 34-hp two-cylinder BMW motorbike engine in its tail. By contrast, the 2015 Golf comes in 3- and 5-door hatchback and even more practical Sportwagen body styles and offers a wide range of eager yet fuel-thrifty turbocharged gas and clean-diesel engines, most with a choice of manual or automatic transmission. An all-electric e-Golf, one of the best EVs we've yet driven, is also available in some areas, and that will be followed, VW says, by a hybrid, a plug-in hybrid and even a CNG-powered model. No question this all-new seventh-generation 2015 VW Golf is easily the best ever. A bit larger, roomier, aerodynamically slicker and more fuel efficient than the Gen VI Golf it replaces, it's built on an all-new modular platform and boasts an amazing range of models, powertrains and features.

Volkswagen Golf Wagon leaked ahead of official unveiling

Wagons ho! These three images of the upcoming Volkswagen Golf Wagon have leaked online ahead of the car's official debut, which may very well be at the Geneva Motor Show. Looking over the photos doesn't really bring any surprises - after all, this is a VW Golf with a wagon rear end grafted on, or basically what we expect next Jetta SportWagen will be.
We can only share these three images at this time, but fret not, folks. There's little doubt that all the details and images will be flowing from Volkswagen in short order. In the meantime, click on the images above to view them in high resolution.