• Volkswagen and Uber have partnered to launch the ID. Buzz as a driverless robotaxi ride-hailing service in the U.S.
• The pilot program begins in L.A. this year. 
• The Volkswagen ID. Buzz is cumbersome to drive in cities. Autonomous systems might just solve that problem.

People love the Volkswagen ID. Buzz. When I had a press loaner in New York City last month, the electric van grabbed eyeballs everywhere I went. Even the police were interested in checking the van out. Now, you might see a lot more of these vans out on the streets thanks to a partnership between Volkswagen and Uber to deploy them as robotaxis.

On Thursday, Volkswagen and Uber announced plans to deploy thousands of self-driving ID. Buzz vans in U.S. cities over the next decade. The vehicle, dubbed the ID. Buzz AD, will run on MOIA’s ridepooling tech. MOIA is Volkswagen’s Berlin-based mobility unit. The pilot kicks off in Los Angeles later this year, with human supervisors on board in the initial phase to help fine-tune the tech. A full commercial rollout is slated for 2026 in L.A.

Volkswagen has been laying the groundwork for this project for a while. It started testing a fleet of electric vans retrofitted with autonomous driving hardware such as lidar, radar and cameras in Austin back in June 2023. Even before that, it was piloting the same tech in Hamburg, Germany, part of a three-year test program running through 2026.

In Hamburg, Volkswagen is working alongside MOIA and Holon, a Benteler spin-off building a 15-passenger electric shuttle called the Mover. Both the Mover and the ID. Buzz share the same self-driving hardware and software in the pilot. Holon, for its part, is planning to bring its electric vans to the U.S., starting in Jacksonville, Florida. It’s unclear, though, whether it’ll partner with VW stateside as it does in Germany.

Photo by: Holon

Robotaxis are gaining steam in the U.S. Uber has already partnered with Google parent Alphabet’s robotaxi division Waymo to deploy robotaxis in Austin and Atlanta. Waymo has been operating its driverless Jaguar I-Pace electric crossovers Phoenix, L.A. and San Francisco for years now. Last month, Waymo announced that it was now doing over 200,000 driverless rideshare trips every week.

The self-driving Ubers are only available in Austin though, that too in a limited capacity, but plans for expansion are ongoing and the service will also extend to Atlanta this year. In the West Coast cities, Waymo has its own smartphone app that riders can use to order robotaxis.

Tesla says it’ll launch its own driverless ride-hailing service in Austin this June. The company even teased a futuristic robovan at its “We, Robot” event in Hollywood last year.  But the first self-driving robovan you actually ride in might not be a Tesla. It will likely be a Volkswagen.

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