VW will make Tesla sweat with 300-mile EV prototype at Paris show

But while we might have balked at the company's commitment to release 30 new EVs in by 2025, VW is full speed ahead, showing its first new EV at the upcoming Paris Motor Show.

According to Electrek, VW CEO Herbert Diess announced the news Wirtschafts Woche, a German magazine. Diess claims the new vehicle's batteries can cover batteries 400 to 600 kilometers (248 to 372 miles) per charge, but Electrek claims he was likely quoting the New European Driving Cycle – real-world range is likely to hover around the 300-mile mark, which is still damn impressive.

At this stage, the Paris debut will likely be a prototype or thinly-veiled production model. Does that mean we can expect an evolved BUDD-e? Maybe. Electrek claims whatever VW shows will be the size of a Golf but offer the cargo space of a Passat – we're not sure how that's physically possible without building a taller vehicle, like VW's handsome MPV concept.

With an expected on-sale date of 2018 or 2019 (as reported by Electrek), if VW is prepping a production BUDD-e, it'd be a little earlier than we originally reported. But that last story is from February – a lot has changed in the last six months, including VW's EV strategy, which accelerated from 20 vehicles by 2020 to 30 by 2025.

Meanwhile, it's worth pointing out that the decision to debut a high-range EV barely a year after its diesel emissions scandal broke is a clear sign that Volkswagen executives are trying to send a message about how the company's changed.