With its proper, full premiere just around the corner, Volkswagen has teased its incoming ID. Buzz - and there’s plenty to be excited about when it comes to this mega-anticipated all-electric lease option.
There’s going to be two variants up for grabs - a traditional five-seat ‘ID. Buzz’ MPV and an ‘ID. Buzz Cargo’ van.
And VW says its dreams of creating an emissions-free ‘Bulli’ - the firm’s nickname for its original ‘T1’ microbus from the 1950s- is ‘now becoming reality’.
Kai Grünitz, Head of Vehicle Development at Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, says the countdown to full production is well and truly on, adding: “Before we start full production of the ID. Buzz, these final trials with vehicles practically matching the ultimate full-production specification provide us with indispensable input for the final fine-tuning.”
So here’s everything you need to know.
The ID. Buzz started life as a concept car first revealed in 2017, so it’s been a good five years in the making.
And it’s been designed with some important elements in mind - namely an ‘extremely short vehicle body overhang’ and ‘maximum utilisation of space on a minimal footprint’.
The ID. Buzz is built on the Volkswagen Group’s Modular Electric Drive Kit (MEB), and the platform gives both the regular Buzz and the Cargo a 82 kWh battery that supplies a 150 kW electric motor. That’s around 201 hp in old money.
VW quotes a top speed of around 90 mph and maximum torque of 310 Nm - but there’s no word yet on what electric range it might have. Fingers crossed we get those stats on March 8th when the ID. Buzz is unveiled in full.
A ‘very low centre of gravity’ should make the ID. Buzz agile enough, and it’ll also have a turning circle of just over 11 metres.
A VW spokesperson adds:
“With its five seats, the multivariable ID. Buzz is just as perfectly tailored to leisure time as it is to business use. With the three-seater ID. Buzz Cargo, an ultra-modern zero-emission van is taking off. But that is just the beginning. During the course of the coming year, the portfolio will be added to by a model with a longer wheelbase and a correspondingly broader range of possibilities in the interior.”
The versions of the ID. Buzz and ID. Buzz Cargo with the standard wheelbase - 2,988 mm - which will launch this year are 4,712 mm long. That’s quite a bit shorter than the VW T6.1, which measures 4,904 mm in total length, but VW says will offer a similar internal length.
The new ID. Buzz is also slightly wider than the T6.1 and runs on big wheels, with rims measuring from 18 inches to 21 inches.
The five-seater ID. Buzz takes up to 1,121 litres of luggage even with all seats occupied. The maximum load capacity of the ID. Buzz Cargo, fitted with a partition wall, is over 3.9 m3.
There’s also going to be some clever tech at play, too.
VW says a new ‘bidirectional charging’ feature will allow lease customers to store excess power from a home’s own solar panels in the ID. Buzz and then feed it back into the home in the evening in order to be ‘independent even without the sun’.
Over-the-air updates will make sure the software never gets dated, while driver assistance systems will include automatic parking and the ability to detect local hazards by way of ‘crowdsourced’ data.
Production of the ID. Buzz starts in the first half of this year, and the European launch follows just a short time later in the autumn. We’ll bring you a full update in the coming weeks, so watch this space.
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