Need a lift? Meet the self-driving ID. Buzz

Remember the ID. Buzz? The fully-electric van/MPV that riffs on the old VW camper will make its proper debut in early 2022, but VW has given us an early glimpse - albeit with stickers all over it and a bunch of sensors poking out.

That’s because this is one of five self-driving prototypes that will begin testing on public roads in various cities around the world (including Munich where it was revealed at a pre-motor show bash), in the next couple of months. VW says it's targeting 2025 for putting actual series production versions of this car on the roads of Hamburg. That’s right, you’ll be able to hail a robo-VW-shuttle in a little over three years time… if all goes to plan.

It’s the fruit of VW’s partnership with Argo AI, the US-based “global autonomous driving technology company developing the self-driving system (SDS), including maps, hardware, software and cloud-support infrastructure". Bet they’re busy.

Among the buffet of fourteen cameras, eleven radar and six lidar bolted to the Buzz, is Argo AI’s own lidar (the big one on top of the roof) that lets the car detect objects more than 400m away. Unless your mother was a hawk and your father a barn owl, I don’t know many humans that can do that.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. As we all know, autonomous driving is a horrifically complicated equation to solve, and the legislative hoops are many, so for now let’s keep it simple and just enjoy the Buzz. Looks great, doesn’t it? I’ll take the camper.