Self-driving VW electric minibuses in ride-sharing trial
The driverless future is a step nearer but, for all the scheme’s cleverness, will it reduce traffic as claimed – and do we really want it?
12 May 2021 • 12:00pm
A rendering of VW's autonomous ID Buzz car-pooling vehicle. The consortium plans a fleet of such vehicles in Munich by 2025
There used to be a slightly off-colour joke about heaven being where the British provided the police, the French did the cooking, the Italians were the lovers and the Germans engineered the cars; hell, of course, being a mess-up of these. Yet yesterday Volkswagen eased another nail into the coffin lid of the German privately-owned car, with the announcement of trials of an autonomous (driverless) version of its ID Buzz electric minibus, with the aim of an entire fleet of ride-pooling ID Buzz-style vehicles on Munich’s streets by 2025.