Every time I drive a Volkswagen Buzz, the more I like it.
BY BRIAN BYRNE
This makes me something of a minority because of the some 20,000 passenger cars that VW has sold in Ireland in the last 18 months, only 83 of them have been Buzzes.
It means that I still look at one when I see it on the road, in part hoping to see what kind of person might be driving it.
Which, when you think of it, is a kind of fruitless endeavour. What can you know from seeing somebody through the window of a car? But maybe you can see if they look happy?
The Buzz was first shown in concept form in 2017, revealed first to the American market as a way to showcase the brand’s intentions in the electric car field following the previous year’s reveal of the ID.3 in Europe.
The marketing hook was the US nostalgia for the passenger Mk 2 Transporter, a popular hippy ‘bus’ in the 1960s on which the retro-style of the Buzz was based.
It was five years later before the van-style vehicle rolled out from showrooms.
I’ve driven a few versions. The style always made me smile, and I suspect it does the same for other people looking at it. It’s butty, squared, long enough to be a decent 5-seater but not too long to be a handful in the parking spaces.
Suitably tall to offer a nice driving position without having to clamber up into something resembling a truck.
As it happened, my latest duty tour in a Buzz was the van version, the Cargo. I’m a longtime van reviewer, so that had its particular interest for me.
Up front, the ambience is the same as in the passenger version, apart from the fact that it’s a three-seater, with the two passenger spaces on a bench.
The dash and instruments are the same, including the large centre infotainment screen. There was plenty of space and adjustment for the driver’s seat, even for me.
The potential for junk storage on the top of the dashboard is vast.
The business end, for load carrying, benefits from the square shape and has a very usable capacity. Sliding doors on each side and a pair of rear doors make loading easy.
I was intrigued by those back doors and their hinging, which seemed to me to be much more substantial than in other vans of similar size.
For a van driver, taking the ID.Buzz out on the road is an easygoing experience. No thrumming diesel. No resonances from the same in the ‘box’ at the rear, even when it’s empty.
It’s altogether a very pleasant operator environment.
Even more so because an electric drivetrain is automatic by default, and I’ve always believed that makes such a difference to a driver who has to spend all day in the cab.
Again, the ‘B’ setting on the transmission saves on having to use the brakes, as well as helping with the range by adding charge every time you lift off the accelerator.
The driving experience itself is peppy, smooth if a little solid, presumably because of the weight of the battery. That can translate into some discombobulation on poor surfaces. Overall, though, it’s pleasant.
I always had the belief that the growth in EV use would be led by commercial vehicles, certainly in the small to medium format, but that hasn’t happened.
Range has become less of an issue; the Buzz and equivalents from other makers offer decent ranges now, which should be more than adequate, especially for urban delivery work.
What’s harder to get over is the significantly higher initial capital cost, and the uncertainty over five-year-on values that impinge on leasing repayments.
Hopefully, these will wash out as issues through time and experience.
Real-world range seems to be upwards of 370 km, depending on the kind of driving and what you’re going to be loaded with.
For most urban delivery situations, that seems more than enough.
If the ID.Buzz was to be my daily workplace in that kind of use, I’d be a much less stressed driver at the end of the day than in a six-speed manual diesel equivalent vehicle.
Is that worth €16,000 more, say over a five-year ownership period?
Along with running cost savings, it’s a Carlsberg. (Probably.)
