Video: Volkswagen I.D. Buzz Concept Review: First Impressions

01:14 min

By Cars.com Editors

January 10, 2017

At the 2017 North American International Auto Show, Volkswagen unveiled the I.D. Buzz concept. Calling it "a Microbus for a new era," the I.D. Buzz is capable of full autonomy.

(car engine starts) In what it calls a microbus for a new era, Volkswagen has given us an ID.Buzz concept. It's obviously looking like a throwback to Volkswagen's iconic bus that it's had for decades and decades. Three cool things about it.

First off these headlights, they actually have sort of an eyeball expression in them that can move around, actually identifies pedestrians, if the system in autonomous driving mode identifies pedestrians. They also kind of turn off when the car is off, sort of like it's sleeping, a little creepy, but you know, it gives it a little bit of personality as well. Second thing, the seating configurations. Check out this interior. It can seat up to eight with two luggage compartments to boot and the front seats can actually completely swivel around. So, you know, passengers up front can talk to passengers in back, which brings us to the third cool thing. The steering wheel actually retracts into the dashboard when it's in fully autonomous driving mode. So you can either drive the car conventionally or let it drive itself with the network of sensors to detect other things around you. So the question is, will Volkswagen ever build one of these things? Well, we've been in this business for a while and Volkswagen keeps occasionally bringing out some kind of throwback concept to its bus. So time will tell, we'll have to wait and see.