VW outlines ID.Buzz plans for Australia

VOLKSWAGEN has outlined plans for the arrival of its electric people mover and cargo van range in Australia, the ID.Buzz and ID.Buzz Cargo expected in local showrooms from mid-2024 – just a few months after the ID.4 and ID.5 electric medium SUVs.

Showcasing the duo to media in Sydney this month, Volkswagen Group Australia (VGA) commercial vehicle managing director Ryan Davies said the model is in the final stages of confirmation for arrival into Australia and will help the brand to grow its EV presence across an even broader mix of vehicle segments.

“Whilst we are targeting to launch ID.Buzz and ID.Buzz Cargo in mid 2024 – and our aim is to start production from the end of next year – we’re still not visually confirmed as a market,” he said.

“But I can tell you that the reason we’ve got two cars here is that our headquarters is determined that they wanted to send out some vehicles to what they classify as the most important international markets, and we’re one of them.

“With the (political) landscape the way it is, and the changing of policies in our country now, these two cars will take electric motoring into even more segments. We’ve kind of framed these cars as segment busters, because people are going to come out of other segments into these particular cars.”

Mr Davies said it was not only the heritage appeal of the Kombi that would get buyers over the line. In Europe, the duo is already proving popular among private and commercial buyers with some 20,000 pre-orders showing an almost exact split between passenger and commercial variants.

“Demand for these cars in Europe is huge – not because of the heritage part of all this, but because of the usability and flexibility of these cars as well,” he explained.

“Now that these cars have started rolling off the production line … and into customer hands, we’re starting to work through some 20,000 orders, and the split between passenger and commercial variants is about 50:50 – which is huge.

“And demand is growing … now that they’re moving into showrooms that demand is expected to surge even further.”

But that demand could pose issues for arrival timing of the ID.Buzz and ID.Buzz Cargo in Australia. With demand for the vehicle escalating, there is concern that VGA may not meet its anticipated on-sale date.

“We do have high volume aspirations for these cars, but I’m not sure that we’re going to be able to realise that in the short-term given the global position,” explained Mr Davies.

Mr Davies said that ongoing global pressures, coupled with extraordinary demand, could see the duo’s initial arrival into the country delayed, or supply curtailed, but he stressed that Volkswagen is ramping up production to meet the expected surge.

“What they’re expecting to build in 2022 is about 50,000 units, so they can’t keep up with global demand at the moment. But by the end of 2023, they’re expecting to build up to 130,000 units per year, which is huge considering the shift that has been needed to do that,” he said.

Not only will Volkswagen manage demand for its new EV van range globally, it aims to deliver each vehicle to the customer on a CO2 neutral basis. Across its three ID.Buzz plants, and throughout the supply chain and delivery process, each European-delivered unit will arrive with the environmental kudos VW says buyers now expect.

“In Europe, the ID.Buzz is actually handed over to the customer on a CO2 neutral basis. This is a result of working with our suppliers throughout the whole supply chain to ensure that we came up with energy-efficient ways of producing this car,” said Mr Davies.

“That in itself is a massive achievement … and we’re working to see if we are able to offer the same solution here.

“We’d love to be able to say to our customers that when we hand that car over to you in a dealership in Australia that it is a CO2 neutral car, and that the customer has the opportunity to power that vehicle with environmentally sustainable energy if they chose to do that.

“If they do that, that means they have the ability to have a lifetime of emissions-free motoring, and that would be the absolute highest objective we could currently hope to achieve.”