Volkswagen ID. Buzz previews 2022 Multivan

The Volkswagen ID. Buzz AD concept has been revealed at the Munich motor show, providing the best look yet at the reborn, all-electric VW Kombi people-mover and commercial van that will hit the streets next year.

However, as the ‘AD’ tag indicates, the major focus with the near-production, retro-designed Munich concept is autonomous driving, and in this case the vehicle stands as a precursor to a Volkswagen production car that will offer full Level 4 autonomy by 2025.

With Volkswagen Group CEO Herbert Diess insisting the switch to EVs would be “easy” by comparison, the high-tech self-driving ID. Buzz AD is laden with LiDars, cameras and radar sensors.

“The switch to autonomous driving will change the industry like nothing else before,” Diess told journalists in Munich.

“The transition to EV is kind of easy. It’s largely an infrastructure issue.

“Autonomous driving will change how people are going to use these devices forever.”

Hammering home the point, Volkswagen brand CEO Ralf Brandstätter insisted at least 15 per cent of the company’s revenue would come from mobility services by 2030, and may be even higher.

“We will generate more share of the revenue over the life of the car this way,” Brandstätter said.

“Over-the-air updates mean we will offer during the lifetime of the car functional services, for things like navigation and extended range or even software updates.

“The subscription model for cars for three or six months [trialled by Volkswagen in Germany] shows the way forward for people who don’t want to own a car.”

Partnering with Argo AI, Volkswagen will funnel the ID. Buzz AD into its Moia ride-sharing operation first, in Hamburg, Germany, from 2025, though Volkswagen prototypes are already running autonomously in six American cities.

Volkswagen and Argo AI have also opened an autonomous-vehicle test centre next to Munich airport to process the more dangerous corner cases before they allow their cars onto the streets.

The ID. Buzz AD’s technical array includes proprietary Argo LiDar to deliver a 360-degree view of the surroundings, and Argo claims its LiDar can reach out to 400 metres away.

It combines this with software able to detect people, children, cyclists and animals at night.

Argo CEO Brian Salesky insisted the aim was to create the “world’s best driver” and to do it at scale.

“The world underestimates how complex this is,” Salesky said.

“It will be a multi-generational problem,” he admitted. “I am working on it and our kids will be working on it.

“It will never truly be done.”

Salesky’s Argo operation, which also works with Ford, came from Google breakaways, and while he won’t mention other competitors, he admits the autonomous “hype cycle” has been unhelpful.

“This business will prosper and be successful if we can scale it out,” he said.

“For us, it’s about safety. There are millions of people who are victims of car crashes and we can reduce that and maybe one day eliminate it.

“We have also developed the farthest-reaching LiDar that is very directly clear from 400 metres away.”

Salesky was also quietly critical of the highway-first attitude of some developers, insisting Argo was chasing urban autonomy first.

“We have to go where the demand is and the demand is in the cities,” he said.

“We have some of our competitors want to be the first to show a demonstrator and the easy miles. The trouble is that if you teach the computer to do the easy jobs then you have to rebuild it to do the hard jobs.”

Argo and Volkswagen have also concentrated on autonomous delivery systems in cities, which is another area where the ID. Buzz AD can come in to play.

With the ID. Buzz used for both commercial and passenger work, Salesky insisted it could be used to deliver goods in cities from 2025.

The ID. Buzz was chosen as the platform for autonomous driving because its size made it easy to adapt to all of the technology, as well as being an obvious “roboshuttle” people-mover.

Far from shrinking the car industry, Diess believes autonomous driving could grow it in ways not considered a decade ago.

There would be new jobs, new products and even an enormous rise in software engineers and legal experts to comply global autonomous driving legislation, said the VW chief.