Volkswagen of America will run two ads during the Super Bowl XLV on February 6, one for the 2012 New Beetle and one for the 2012 Passat. Forget the first ad, it’s the ad for the 2012 Passat that caught our attention.

It shows a young boy in a Darth Vader costume trying desperately to actually use Darth Vader’s force powers around the house, to no avail. It is only when he stands in front of the new Passat and commands it to start that it works. The kid’s father has started up the car with a remote starter in the key-fob. It’s a cute and geeky ad. We love it.

There are a number of electric bikes and motorcycles on the market today. The good thing about these devices is that they are green and quiet. There are lots of folks that like to commute on electric bikes rather than drive cars.

VW is a major car brand that has not been tied to electric bikes before. The firm unveiled a new electric bike called the bik.e at the Auto China 2010 show. The bike is designed to fold up and fit into the spare tire area of a car.

Looks like the VW bus has jumped the groove and left it’s record playing days behind to become a radio. Dreams of Japan has released a miniature version of the Volkswagen bus aka hippie mobile, that features an AM/FM radio, all the necessary jacks for hooking up an external audio source and radio antenna alongside a tiny LCD display in the back window.

It also features a digital clock for the time. But it wouldn’t be a hippie mobile without some analog dials to tune the radio and adjust the volume. Sadly, there’s a catch. As every hippie knows, “the man” can’t be trusted. “The man” has priced this one at $129.99.

The days of working only at an office are long gone. It’s getting harder and harder to stop working and leave our work behind thanks to all of our gadgets. I’m afraid the T6 concept car for workaholics doesn’t help.

Designer Alexander Zhukovsky is to blame should we all end up on the highways working our asses off. It comes complete with all the office space you and your co-workers need. Plus a nice sturdy table so you can have your coffee and get to work. The round sliding door slides up to let the next victim in and closes promptly so you won’t hear the screams.

Does this qualify as a Lowrider? I have no idea. It’s claimed that the Vancake is the lowest Volkswagen Bus in the world. Tiny hippies use it to go back and forth between Burning Man and Middle Earth. It measures only 3 feet tall and was originally a VW Camper.

Apparently it manages to be street legal. Designers Just Kampers and Andy Saunders created the Vancake in just three days. They did all the work during the Bug Jam festival at the UK’s Santa Pod Raceway from June 18 to June 20, which consisted of removing the Volkswagen’s roof, putting in an electric sunroof, and completely redoing the paint job. It may be street legal, but it’s just plain wrong.

If you love old records, but don’t have the space for a turntable, then the Soundwagon Portable Record Player is for you. It’s the smallest portable record player in the world, and it’s an officially licensed Volkswagen van that will drive around the record as it plays your favorite vinyl records.

The sound is via an integrated speaker. I wouldn’t expect top notch sound, but watching an old VW drive along your old record will probably take you back in time. It will cost $90 and will give those old records another shot at life.

We thought we’d take a little break from the usual and take a look at some cool art cars that geeks have modded into their own visions of coolness. So here’s some random pimped out tonnage of pure nerd love coming at ya. When a nerd has a car, all things are possible…Though it will usually end up having something to do with the Star Wars universe.

Volkswagen has developed its latest vehicle concept for an electric car of the future. Designed in collaboration with German design student Marc Kirsch for his diploma project, the Volkswagen Viseo is a three-seater that produces zero carbon emissions. Created to show that being environmentally friendly doesn’t mean that you don’t look sexy, the Viseo has that streamlined look that screams sports car sex appeal. Unfortunately we don’t know what kind of miles per charge the electric cars in the future will get so while the Viseo looks great it’s still an unknown performer.

One novel new feature about the Viseo is that the back-end of the car can detach and becomes a suitcase that you can wheel around. Something like this sounds great if you need to fly a lot and park your car longterm at the airport but as an everyday idea, it’s not so hot.

In a sign that shows how powerful the branding of Apple’s iPod is and how much hurt the car manufacturing sector has come to, Apple and automobile manufacturer Volkswagon AG are now in discussions about making a so-called “iCar” that would be the ideal mode of transportation for any iEnthusiast. Apple CEOe Steve Jobs and Volkswagen’s prexy Martin Winterkorn have already met to talk about ideas for their collaboration and will be having more sessions to spitball ideas for their lifestyle ride.

So what kind of features could an iCar have beside the port for your iPod and iPhone? What about smart technology that lets you download iTunes to the car’s stereo? What about a dashboard that has a user interface like the one in the iPhone? The mind boggles at the possibilities but one more idea that we would like to mention are car commercials along the lines of Apple’s “I’m a PC and I’m a Mac” series. How about “I’m an SUV and I’m a iCar?”

When I’m riding in a plane I love to see those little LCD’s in the seat that show you exactly where the plane is at as it follows it’s flight path, and just how much further we have to go. So it makes sense to me that kids would appreciate that as well, not to mention the chance that it might cut down on some of the repeated questions regarding our ETA.

For this device, Popular Mechanics got a …