Volkswagen to produce electric version of Microbus

Volkswagen has announced that it will produce an electric version of its Microbus, the iconic, bug-eyed "hippie bus."

The new model, a production version of Volkswagen's concept vehicle ID Buzz, was revealed earlier this year at the Detroit Auto Show and is expected to be available in 2022 in the US, Europe and China, according to a company press release Saturday.

''For me, the I.D. Buzz concept is the most beautiful and most exciting electric car in the world,'' Dr Herbert Diess, chairman of the Board of Management for the Volkswagen brand said in the statement.

''Our goal is clear: we want to make the fully electric, fully connected car a bestseller around the world. The iconic car of the electric age must be a Volkswagen.''

Volkswagen's original Type 1 Microbus was introduced in 1950 and had only 30 horsepower.

Electric motors will deliver 369 horsepower to each axle in the electric version. ''The I.D. Buzz stands for the new Volkswagen,'' Diess said in the press release.

Meanwhile, Volkswagen is facing a damaging emissions cheating scandal, which has cost it around $25 billion to date.

The announcement, this weekend comes only days after federal prosecutors recommended a three-year prison sentence for an engineer involved in the 2015 controversy.

The ID Buzz is expected to hit dealerships in 2022, in North America, Europe and China.

"After the presentations at the global motor shows in Detroit and Geneva, we received a large number of letters and emails from customers who said, 'please build this car,' " Volkswagen brand CEO Herbert Diess said in a statement.

The announcement came at an annual car show in Pebble Beach as "the microbus has long been part of the California lifestyle," Diess said.

It "looks like a compact commercial van on the outside, even though it offers the generous interior space of a large SUV," Diess said, USA Today reported.