We went to VW’s North American 3-row ID.Buzz reveal this week in Southern California, and while we didn’t see anything about VW’s upcoming California camper van, we did see a cool camper/kitchen conversion that’s already available for the European two-row ID.Buzz, and we’re hoping to see something similar for the 3-row version.
Since the 3-row, long wheelbase Buzz is brand new and was only unveiled this week, aftermarket parts haven’t been announced or designed yet. But at the event, VW did have one two-row, EU-spec ID.Buzz tricked out with various accessories to turn it into a pretty cool camping machine, and we got to take a little glimpse into some of the future possibilities for this vehicle.
The camping kit we saw is from a company called Ququq, based in Germany. It makes kits like this for various vehicles, but of particular interest to us here at Electrek is the “BusBox-4” kit for the ID.Buzz.
The kit costs €3190 (~$3,400), though that includes 19% tax in Germany. With it, you get a folding mattress, a stove, and some storage space/containers for cooking equipment, some of which is included in the kit.
To use the bed, the 2nd row seats must be folded down, and the mattress folds out in three parts over the top of the folded-down seats. This doesn’t leave a ton of vertical space, so no jumping up and down on the bed allowed.
It all fits quite nicely into the back of the Buzz, or so it looked when we saw it at the event. We didn’t get a chance to test the comfort of the bed or the function of the kitchen, but it looked like it would do nice in a pinch.
You do lose a lot of rear cargo space, because the stove and folded bed take up a lot of height, but you still have enough room for luggage and such on top of the folded bed.
One problem with the aftermarket nature of this addon is that the stove runs on gas instead of electricity. The latter would work a lot better since it could make use of the built-in power from the ID.Buzz’s battery, without needing to buy gas canisters (or use fossil fuels for cooking). A first-party solution could potentially tap into the battery for a more elegant solution.
But the EU-spec Buzz does not have an outlet, either, just USB ports, so there’s nothing to plug into for an aftermarket part. The US Buzz does have one 110v outlet under the passenger seat, which could potentially enable a device like this to plug in and use battery power.
VW also equipped the vehicle with some other accessories, like a large roof rack and a canopy to create a patio area beside the van. While these weren’t official VW accessories, VW equipped the bus this way to show what’s already possible with aftermarket solutions, without needing to go to the level of doing a full conversion.
While this is a relatively early example of what could be done with the ID.Buzz, it’s pretty exciting to see that there are already some useful camper solutions out there. And we’re particularly excited to see what could be done with the extra 10 inches of space in the long wheelbase version which VW just debuted yesterday.