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Superficially, the Volkswagen ID.Buzz suits into the present roster of U.S.-market minivans. It can, in spite of everything, have energy sliding doorways, three rows of seats, and loads of cupholders. However this is not actually a direct salvo on the likes of the Toyota Sienna and the Chrysler Pacifica. For one factor, it is electrical. And it is rear-wheel drive. And it appears to be like cool. As in, individuals in Copenhagen have been breaking their necks to stare at it throughout our drive of a Europe-spec Buzz. It is a realized reflex to consider minivans as anti-stylish, however this one is unabashedly contemporary, an idea automotive made actual in two-tone sweet white and lime yellow. Climbing into the ID.Buzz makes you need to stop your job and develop into a surf teacher in Hermosa Seashore, or go backpacking throughout Peru, or increase alpacas so you’ll be able to knit organic-wool drug rugs for everybody in your commune. That is new territory: minivan as standing image and halo automotive for a whole model.
Given Volkswagen’s success in squeezing Beetle nostalgia for a few further many years’ price of gross sales, it is wonderful it took this lengthy to use the identical system to the Bug’s incense-scented cousin, the Bus (or, as VW affectionately calls it in Germany, the Bulli). However resurrecting the Bus with something like the unique snub-nosed proportions was by no means actually possible with VW’s internal-combustion platforms—a lot simpler to rebadge a Dodge Grand Caravan as a Routan than to engineer some form of front-drive cab-over-engine individuals hauler. However on VW’s MEB platform for EVs, the ID.Buzz can faithfully hew to the template of its beloved, painfully gradual progenitor: rear motor, rear-wheel-drive. The vents within the D-pillar could also be pretend, however not less than they correspond to the precise location of the motor.
Mechanically, the ID.Buzz is a doppelgänger for the ID.4 SUV, with a single motor making 201 horsepower and 229 pound-feet of torque, and a 77.0-kWh battery delivering 263 miles of vary, in keeping with the WLTP methodology, which might put it round 220 miles within the U.S. on the EPA’s cycles. (For reference, the EPA charges the rear-drive ID.4 Professional’s vary at 275 miles.) VW claims the Buzz will mosey to 100 km/h (62 mph) in 10.2 seconds, which makes it the 1967 Bus of latest electrical automobiles. An all-wheel-drive U.S. model should be significantly faster, provided that we clocked the 295-hp all-wheel-drive ID.4 at 5.4 seconds to 60 mph. VW claims that the two-row ID.Buzz weighs 5448 kilos, whereas we recorded 4698 kilos from a comparable ID.4.
There aren’t too many surprises on the spec sheet, besides the rear brakes, that are drums. We suppose Volkswagen figured that because the motor can generate round 0.3 g of deceleration purely via regeneration, the rear axle would not precisely want six-piston Brembos. That is most likely proper, notably as a result of the launch mannequin’s wheel design largely obscures the brakes anyway. However throw some skinny five-spokes on this factor and the rear finish will look goofy, even when the brakes work completely tremendous—the ID.4 recorded a good 166-foot cease from 70 mph, drums and all.
In step with the flower-child picture of its long-ago predecessors, the ID.Buzz is delivered carbon-neutral (which means VW pays for offsets akin to the carbon footprint of its manufacturing), and a number of the inside supplies are recycled. Between the entrance seats is the Buzz Field middle console, which options an ice scraper and a bottle opener up prime and is detachable, in case you are the sort of one that likes to tote round your middle console like a purse. The infotainment controls are modern VW gadgets, which means a lot of capacitive contact sliders and never many buttons. An automatic parking system can bear in mind learn how to park in sure spots, and you may both manually activate it (after educating it the strikes) or have it mechanically supply its help when the GPS says it is in place. A cool LED mild bar throughout the underside of the windshield will flash pink if it is advisable hit the brakes or sign upcoming turns from the navigation system.
It is arduous to attract too many conclusions about what we’ll see stateside, because the ID.Buzz we drove in Copenhagen is so completely different from the U.S.-market model. This was the short-wheelbase two-row mannequin that we’ll by no means see, outfitted with options we’ll by no means get, such because the power-deployable tow hitch that swings out from underneath the rear bumper. Our model will likely be 10.6 inches longer, with three rows of seats and presumably extra of a give attention to passengers. The Europe mannequin comes throughout as a cargo van with rudimentary rear seating (suppose Mercedes-Benz Metris), and actually there is a cargo model rated for 1429 kilos of payload. We think about that apart from the stretch, the Buzz will bear some people-moving optimization earlier than its U.S. debut, which will not be till 2024.
Within the Europe-spec ID.Buzz, the second row is a bench seat with no armrests. There are not any rear HVAC controls, as a result of there is not any rear HVAC to regulate. The rear seats fold however aren’t detachable, so the vans on the launch have been fitted with an optionally available raised platform for the cargo space that creates a flat load flooring but in addition renders a large quantity of inside quantity ineffective, since you’ll be able to’t entry greater than a few toes underneath that false flooring with out a croupier’s stick. (VW evidently did not entertain one other path to a flat flooring whereas retaining most cargo house: detachable second-row seats.)
We will assume Volkswagen will repair up the rear-seat lodging with captain’s chairs and HVAC, however sure different compromises appear baked into the design. For example, we initially assumed that the Buzz makes use of the ID.4’s goofy driver’s-side energy window switches, during which two bodily switches toggle capabilities to function both entrance or rear home windows. Nevertheless it seems the ID.Buzz solely has two switches as a result of solely two home windows open (the entrance ones). That flush glass within the rear doorways appears to be like glorious and contributes to the slippery-for-a-van 0.29 coefficient of drag, however it might’t roll down. Will VW redesign the rear doorways with inset roll-down home windows or ship us a van with rear home windows that merely do not open? Perhaps they will come out and slide again whereas retaining the flush design, however some reengineering must occur.
It is also arduous to see how the ID.Buzz will accommodate a 3rd row that folds into the ground, one other minivan given in our market. With its rear-mounted motor and barely any overhang behind these large wheels (21 inches on the automotive we drove), the place would the third row go? You need to admire Volkswagen’s dedication to the concept-car aesthetic, however the lack of compromise on the ID.Buzz’s appears to be like imposes obligatory drawbacks as operate follows type.
That features the view ahead too. With its enormous entrance quarter-windows, the ID.Buzz gives a panoramic view forward. However the excessive seating place and upright windshield flip its roof into an enormous baseball hat pulled low over your eyes. In Denmark, the place site visitors lights are sometimes mounted on six-foot posts, it was some time earlier than we encountered a dangling overhead mild and observed we could not see it with out craning ahead within the seat and looking out up. In the event you flipped down the solar visor, you would not be capable to see U.S. site visitors lights which might be nearer than the subsequent county.
Will any of this hamstring ID.Buzz gross sales? Doubtless not, and VW is arguably making a canny wager that our market desires not one other minivan benchmarked to the strengths of the prevailing crop however a machine that goes in a totally completely different path. In the event you consider the ID.Buzz as extra like an SUV than a minivan—a life-style assertion somewhat than a ruthlessly optimized instrument for household transportation—then it comes into focus. We have already obtained 4 minivans dedicated to utmost practicality. It is okay to have one which’s simply dwelling the dream.
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