The ID. Buzz AD, the first fully autonomous production vehicle from Volkswagen (VW), is to be deployed in Europe and the US from 2026.
Self-driving vehicles have rarely been out the headlines in recent weeks.
In just the past week alone, Alphabet’s Waymo revealed it is to expand into New York City, Amazon’s Zoox has opened a robotaxi manufacturing plant and Tesla launched its robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, with 11 vehicles.
VW has now also entered the robotaxi fray, but with a slightly different offering.
Its MOIA brand, a tech subsidiary of the VW Group, has unveiled the ID. Buzz AD – an autonomous production-ready version of its all-electric ID. Buzz microbus.
The difference is that while MOIA supplies the “comprehensive end-to-end solution” – the electric vehicle, self-driving tech, digital customer booking platform and operator training – the robotaxis themselves will be managed by public and private service providers.
MOIA says that this approach will enable providers to launch...