Is this slammed ID. Buzz the future of roadside EV recovery?

It’s a damp, miserable winter’s evening and you’re stranded by the side of the A1 after your EV ran out of charge. You’ve exhausted the Haribos supply from your SOS package, and desperately need a pick-me-up… and then you see a modified black and yellow ID. Buzz approaching. Yes, your knight in shining (AA) armour has arrived.

The car pictured isn’t just for show: it’s an actual patrol and recovery vehicle serving in the AA’s fleet, piloted by Chris Wood and Max Lamond. Having covered around 14,000 miles in 2024, the pair say the AA is ramping up its preparations in line with the increased number of EVs on the road. A slammed ID. Buzz is precisely the way to do that.

“We’ve used it all over the country,” said Lamond. “We’ve mostly done the mileage in England, but we’ve worked along the North Coast 500 and dispatched it in rural Wales for a couple of hundred miles too to see how it would fare.

“And the answer is very well. We get around 250 miles of range from its 77kWh battery, and stripped out the rear to fit it with all sorts of tools and devices that would help us help get you back on the road.”

A few more details on that wonderful exterior, perhaps? Wood said: “It’s got 20in BBS alloys and air suspension that’s been taken from a Transporter and adapted to fit the Buzz. It would be nice to put some yellow underglow too.

“We’ve also got loads of covert beacons across, given this is a recovery vehicle, and that even improves aero a bit. Normally you’d get a big bar up top or along the sides, which protrude, but this is much more seamlessly integrated into the bodywork.”

Design wise, both Lamond and Wood say this is what they envision AA vehicles to look like 50 or 60 years from now. It’s “bold” and “different”, but still has the well-known black and yellow livery (albeit slightly modified) to retain some familiarity.

But the spacious interior is where the ID. Buzz really earns its merit as a recovery workhorse. Speaking on the upgrades here, Lamond said: “The first addition we made was the vehicle-to-vehicle charging. We can DC charge at speeds of up to 30 kW, which is far from what you’ll get from a supercharger, but enough to top up around 15 miles in six minutes. That tends to be more than enough to get customers to a nearby charger.

“We’ve got a bunch of equipment that helps us work on the really high-voltage vehicles, from insulated tooling to visors, mats and gloves. There’s a multimeter device too, which helps us conduct more in-depth diagnostics checks to make sure we aren’t taking any major risks.”

But just how busy are they? In October 2024, a mere 4.9 per cent of the 10,000 daily AA callouts were EV-related. And of those, just seven calls were for vehicles out of charge: half being completely out of juice, and the other half a result of range anxiety.

“We don’t have an awful lot of work with EVs right now,” said Wood. “But the purpose of this car is to show that we are prepared and ready to increase our EV presence when needs must. We’ve already started gathering data about where EV breakdown hotspots are, and are training multiple patrol teams to be on standby near those areas to act on a moment’s notice.”