Dusseldorf For Volkswagen, it will be the most important model of the new year: In 2022, the Wolfsburg-based car manufacturer will start producing and selling the fully electric ID.Buzz. With an electric drive and a high proportion of software, the minibus is intended on the one hand to symbolize the new, future-oriented VW group. On the other hand, the ID.Buzz should also build on Volkswagen’s successful van past.
When introducing a new model, car manufacturers deliberately release more and more news in order to slowly introduce customers and the public to the start of sales. Information is scattered bit by bit over months in order to increase interest in a new model.
This is exactly what is happening at the moment with the new ID.Buzz, from which Volkswagen expects continued great sales success from the coming year. The first pictures of the minibus are now appearing. Not all the details of the car can be seen in the recordings – because Volkswagen, for example, uses camouflage film to build up an arc of suspense over several months. Step by step, more and more details are likely to become known in the near future.
As reported from company circles, the official product presentation is planned for next spring. Then the Wolfsburg-based automaker should also reveal the final secrets about the new vehicle. Sales of the ID.Buzz could then begin in the second half of the year.
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The “Bulli”, which is manufactured by the commercial vehicle subsidiary VWN in Hanover, is an icon for the entire group. In the past, the Wolfsburg-based car manufacturer was not only equated with the Beetle, but also with the minibus. Volkswagen recorded sales successes for decades – not only in Europe, but especially in the USA.
The future of the minibus is fully electric
The fully electric version, which will also be produced in Hanover in the future, is intended to secure the future of the minibus when the age of the internal combustion engine comes to an end. Like the ID.3 and ID.4 models that have already been sold, the ID.Buzz is based on the MEB platform, the “modular electrification kit” from Volkswagen. Many components are identical to the car models, which creates synergies and reduces costs.
Because of its great importance, especially in the USA, the sales start of the new electric minibus has to be just right. It helps the VW Group that it has been selling its first cars from the ID model series for almost a year and a half. The Wolfsburg-based company was able to gain important experience with ID.3 and ID.4. With software that has become more complicated in particular, they had to pay hardship – and keep improving.
The ID.Buzz will be able to be delivered to the first customers in the new year with a more stable software version, at least according to the announcement from Wolfsburg. Teething troubles from the early days of the ID model series should be eliminated, so the minibus could actually represent the future of Volkswagen.
The ID.Buzz is also important for the VW location in Hanover. For the foreseeable future, up to 100,000 copies of the electric van will be manufactured there annually, which corresponds to around half of the total production capacity. The e-minibus will also be available in a car version and a commercial vehicle, for example for craftsmen. With the craftsman variant, VW should take a little more time; the automaker wants to start sales initially with the car version.
In the combustion engine world, Volkswagen earned a lot from the camper and “California” versions of its minibus. Similar recreational vehicles should also exist in the age of electric drives. At the beginning of December, the VW supervisory board approved the investments for these additional product offshoots of the ID.Buzz. However, it will be a little longer before these electric recreational vehicles are sold.
The American market is particularly important
Wolfsburg repeatedly emphasizes how important the American market is for Volkswagen. But in the past decade, the VW group has lost billions in the United States and experienced its absolute low point there in 2015 with the diesel affair. In the meantime, the economic situation for Volkswagen in North America has improved significantly. “In 2021 we will probably be profitable again in the second largest automobile market in the world for the first time in over ten years – despite the lack of semiconductors and the pandemic,” announced VW brand boss Ralf Brandstätter in mid-November.
If the new electric ID.Buzz, like earlier predecessor models from the combustion era, can also establish itself in the USA, the economic situation there would also improve for Volkswagen. With correspondingly high sales figures, production in the USA would also be interesting from a VW point of view. The company’s own factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA, could be expanded for the ID.Buzz.
From a group perspective, the new ID.Buzz is also gaining in importance, namely for autonomous driving. The electric bus will be the base vehicle for future robotic taxis, on which the group subsidiary VWN is working together with Argo AI, a joint venture between Volkswagen and Ford. The Wolfsburg-based company themselves speak of the “spearhead for autonomous driving in the group”.
The first test vehicles are already on the road in Germany, and VW has opted for Munich and Hamburg. If the Argo and Volkswagen developers get the technology together, including the extremely complex software, under control, then the first completely driverless robotic taxis should roll on German roads in 2025. Volkswagen is already testing the possible uses of such shared taxis with its ridesharing subsidiary Moia in Hamburg and Hanover – but currently with a driver.
Companies, driving and courier services would benefit most from autonomously deployed minibuses because they could save the driver’s wages. The technology will still be far too expensive for private customers in the years to come.
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