Volkswagen ID. Buzz review

A van of two halves. First class up front, economy in the back. And it really does feel special for the front two. The glass is upright, a long way in front and curves around, a widescreen windscreen. You’re sitting high, armrests flipped down, soaking it all in, viewing the outside from this light, bright and futuristic pedestal. It’s a wonderful thing to be in and pilot, as calming and relaxing as a Range Rover.

The materials, the design, the stowage, the ambience, gives the Buzz a very upbeat, exciting feel. There’s a removable multi-function chest between the front seats, but the chairs themselves do not spin round yet. More functionality will come further down the line.

What about the rear seats?

It’s all rather ordinary in the back: A 60:40 split bench just like any other SUV or MPV. The sliding doors are fun and novel, and the cabin inside has plentiful leg and headroom and easy access. But you’re not travelling in the same class back there. And there’s only three of you travelling. And it feels like the seats should slide back further, eat into some of that over-endowed boot space. Of course the seven-seat balances things out better with those extra two seats in the back – big enough for adults, but safe enough for tiddlers with Isofix points as standard. You can also order it (at no extra cost) with two individual thrones in the second row with space to walk between them.

Any tricks in the boot?

At the moment the load bay is a bit of an underused resource. It’s massive by car standards, capable of swallowing 1,121 litres under the parcel shelf (a Volvo XC90 is 775 litres) and seats folded (the seven-seat has a mahoosive 2,469-litres if you fold row two and remove the third row entirely) double any SUV you care to mention. Yet at 4.7 metres long (a smidge under 5m for the seven-seat) the Buzz is shorter than almost all of them. Now tell us your SUV is well packaged.

But size and space alone isn’t everything. Where are the clever touches? The attachments, hooks, things to stop stuff flying around? It’ll come, just not yet. And don’t think this is the same size as a van. Yes, the four cubic metre interior is massive by car standards, but the T6 van is six cubic metres inside. You can spy what sets them apart quite easily – the thick body frame that’s so good at suppressing noise and flex constricts the cabin.

Some glimmers of light: on the seven-seat you now get a little sliding rear window to access fresh air from the back seat, a powered tailgate and twin electrically operated sliding doors as standard. The latter are endlessly satisfying to pop open from the fob as you struggle towards the car with an armful of school bags. A word of warning, unless you live in a hermetically sealed Truman Show bubble without dirt, then avoid the white cloth seats, they’re magnetic to mud. 

Moving on…

Not just yet, couple of other things to get off TG’s collective chest. Coming at this from a VW T5 or T6 Caravelle or Transporter van? You can no longer carry bikes on a tailgate-mounted rack. The super-strong struts that allowed something like 50kg of load to be carried, have gone. Depending on the model the Buzz has an electric tailgate and the motors aren’t strong enough to push a rack into the air.

Bikes then, will have to travel on a towbar rack. Notoriously tricky to open a tall tailgate when you have bikes on a towbar – here it’s an electrically deployable one. And that towbar can only tow 1,100kg, where the old Caravelle could take 2,500kg. Lightweight loads only.

Tell me about the Cargo van.

It’s a bougie hauler. ‘Just’ 3.9 cubic metres (3,900 litres), or able to swallow two euro pallets. Don’t expect DPD to be hoovering these up. Expect them to have holes cut in the sides and be flogging coffee. Twin sliding doors just like the passenger version, but also the vertical tailgate rather than sideways opening doors. Neat underfloor storage for the charging cables inside the sliding door that the passenger one doesn’t benefit from though.

Let’s roll a grenade now… how’s the infotainment?

Well… the ID. Buzz uses the same universally criticised infotainment as the other IDs. Look, it’s had a bit of an upgrade, so most of the lag issues have been addressed, but it’s still infuriating in some ways. The non-illuminated sliders below the screen that make night-time temperature and volume adjustment, quite literally, a stab in the dark remain our biggest ‘what were they thinking?’ head-scratcher.

But there is a lot of functionality in there and equipment levels are good. Electric massage seats, matrix LED lights, good sound systems, 30-colour mood lighting. It’s fun to play with.