ID.Buzz reviews

I know the real car is never going to be as cool as the concept.

But there were some lovely ideas in the 2017 ID.Buzz concept, and it looked fantastic.

This looks like just another minivan.

I mean, it's great that there is now an electric minivan other than the very-short-range Peugeot-Opel-Vauxhall ones. There's definitely a market for a high-quality electric minivan with a good range.

And maybe there'll be some exciting variants in future.

But this.... It's just not getting me excited at all. It looks like a great, functional minivan, and that's a good thing. But it could have been amazing.

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"Plug And Charge", though. That's cool. Finally another EV maker is catching up with Tesla and charging will be less of a pain.

 

Yes. It could have been so interesting. It has the heritage, and the concept took full advantage of that. But this is not significantly different to my old Chrysler Grand Voyager (although hopefully with the pedals in a more sensible place).

 

VW are still claiming that it's camouflage. But it looks a lot more like marketing to me.

 

Yes, it's like "DON'T LOOK AT THIS!!!!! YOU MIGHT FIND OUT ABOUT OUR VERY IMPORTANT SECRET NEW DESIGN!!!!!"

 

When I lived in HK, I worked for a while at a big law firm and my office overlooked what was first the British army base and then (after 1 July 1997) the People's Liberation Army base. The base was on the harbour, and I had a beautiful view over the whole of the harbour. The army base had its own jetty.

One day, a weird ship docked, loaded and unloaded, and sailed off. It was a catamaran, with weirdly-shaped slabs at strange angles. It had some fairly eccentric camouflage paint. When it sailed off, it left no visible wake. I thought "that's got to be a stealth ship".

This all happened just before Easter. That's the wettest, foggiest time of year in HK.

HK has regular high-speed ferries to Macau. They're enormous catamarans that travel at 45kts (51mph). The stretch of water between HK and Macau is one of the busiest waterways in the world.

Over Easter, there was a big story in the news. A HK-Macau ferry had crashed, and about 100 passengers had to get evacuated.

It turns out that what I saw had indeed been a PLA stealth ship. Some idiot had decided that testing it in one of the world's busiest waterways at the foggiest time of year. The crew of the ferry didn't see it, and the radar didn't see it either, so they smacked into it at full speed.

I guess the stealth technology worked.

 

There are some new official articles out on the ID.Buzz. They've formally launched it now.

2022 Volkswagen ID. Buzz electric car revealed: price, specs and release date | What Car?

VW ID. Buzz revealed: All the details on retro new Microbus | CAR Magazine


I must say, it looks less disappointing than it did in those videos with all the disguise and the restricted filming. The interior looks cool. And the paint job makes the whole thing look more like a hippie Microbus than the silly camouflage did.

I don't know why they decided to do that. It really made the ID.Buzz look a bit rubbish. But this looks actually quite cool.





Oh no! Some idiot has put the steering wheel on the wrong side!

But otherwise I think this looks like it would be a thoroughly nice place to be.

 

Oooh, they're launching a new version of the ID.Buzz that gives more authentic VW Bus experience.

https://www.topgear.com/car-news/satire/exclusive-vw-build-id-buzz-version-breaks-down-constantly