Electromobility is a very serious matter, it is often said. Connected with the new drive technology but the fate of the entire car industry. Above all, large manufacturers such as Volkswagen have to push their Stromer in large numbers into the market, if they do not want to perish on the threat of CO2 from 2020 onwards.
But of all things Lower Saxony, despite this challenge, still has capacity for an electric good-mood car, which is not exactly made for the mass market. ID Buggy states and should show what else is possible with the electric drive for designers, except to meet emissions standards.
For the first time VW had shown the cute vehicle without windows and doors in the spring on the Geneva salon. Half a year later, the buggy is parked in a sandy California parking lot ready for its maiden voyage around the Pebble Beach peninsula. A 204 hp electric motor drives the car, the power comes from a 62 kWh battery.
Memories of the original buggy by Bruce Meyers
That sounds like a future - but getting into the car throws you back to the seventies. The driver climbs over the parapet and falls into the thin seats with water-repellent fabric cover - and think of the time when the beach boys roared from the radio, the hair was long, the shirts were colorful and the pants short and half the world of Surfing in California was dreaming.
At that time a buggy was born, as a radical modification of the VW Beetle. The original buggy had been created by boat builder Bruce Meyers from Pismo Beach, California, who has recently re-dressed a beetle chassis.
In the automobile present the team around VW design chief Klaus Bischoff and show car farmer Dzemal Sjenar had to pay much more safety rules than the buggy enthusiasts back then. And yet, this lightness comes straight back to driving, which becomes more tangible with every kilometer along the surf - especially because no boxer engine overblows the waves as in the historical model.
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VW ID Buggy: The beach runnerThis car is absolutely pointless, in a positive sense - and only committed to fun. As open and as close as in this buggy with its hand-cut plastic body you can barely experience its environment from a car. All the convertible drivers on the track are almost sorry to isolate themselves from their environment with the wind deflectors, heated seats and nape-blowing hair.
And that, although the buggy initially only exists in a stealth version, with only a maximum of 35 km / h in it. The engineers are afraid for the handmade single piece. In which no airbags are installed, the straps and the powerful roll bar are better dummies. Once the ID Buggy once 160 things to create. Already, he is pushing to the limit like a sports car and is as agile as a bumper car.
VW itself will not be able to build the buggy
The wind even goes down into the trouser leg, so deeply are the flanks cut out. Without windows and doors, the driver does not feel vulnerable, but like on a stage.
Take a look inside the ID Buggy - with our 360 degree photo:
"Once again we need an emotional car and a real popular figure", design chief Bischoff once said and therefore devised the buggy. Such concepts are rare so far, although the simple electric drive makes it easier in principle. Exceptions are the Renault Twizy and the Citroën e-Mehari.
The fundamental problem with such creative companions: Big sales figures can not be done with them, and a group like Volkswagen is simply too big for small series. "All our equipment, all our processes and all the factories are designed for such large numbers that such cars have no chance," admits a VW spokesman. A few thousand gulfs per day are no problem for them, but for a few thousand buggies a year, VW is not flexible enough.
E-drive offers small production vehicles new opportunities
But that does not mean that the fun car inevitably goes down in history as a pure PR gag. Bischoff and Sjenar are looking for a partner who builds the car in small numbers. He could take over VW's modular electrical kit and put a new buggy-style body on the ID3's platform. VW has already spoken with Günther Schuh, the founder and boss of the Aachen electric car start-up eGo. Nothing is known yet about results.
Electric cars are predestined for such a small-batch production, says Sjenar: "An electric floor assembly makes it much easier, faster and cheaper to put a new hat on a burner," says the project manager. "Suspension, drive, rigidity - everything that is important for driving brings the kit with you, the rest is just disguise."
Analyst: "VW makes a virtue of necessity"
There are several advantages for Volkswagen. The car world gets to see a funny vehicle with VW emblem. In addition, cooperations - as with Ford - are accelerating the electric platform production. Thus, the manufacturing costs for own new electric cars fall faster. "VW turns a necessity into a virtue," says analyst Jan Burgard of Munich-based strategy consultant Berylls with a view to the sluggish sales of electric cars. The respective partner pays quite a lot per piece, but saves enormous platform development costs.
The ID Buggy has the stuff "a precedent," says Burgard. As soon as a small series manufacturer could come to terms with the VW processes, the way was paved for such niche models in low quantities. Large manufacturers could also provide small software platforms, production capacities, call center structures and workshops to small ones. As a small series manufacturer cooperates with a group, would not really create a competitive situation, so Burgard. "Both sides would have something like this."
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However, whether a buggy is the right vehicle concept for such a change is more than questionable. Except in California, Florida or on the coasts of southern Europe, the weather is too bad for such an open-air car. The target price of 35,000 euros should also be too high for most car rental companies or holiday organizers. Even the similar Citroën e-Mehari (price: 25,000 euros plus battery rental) is not exactly a bestseller.
And how is the nature of the hippie buggy vehicle even compatible with the platform strategy of a global corporation? Buggy inventor Meyers does not have to judge anymore. His beetle "platforms" he had brought from the used car market or from the junkyard - without a deal with VW.
