I get to drive all kinds of new cars, including cars that have been eagerly anticipated for a long time. I’m not going to lie, it’s fun. But I’m not sure I’ve ever encountered a new car launch that I’ve been so personally excited or invested in, because this, the 2023 Volkswagen ID.Buzz – the electrified re-birth of the old Type 2 Microbus– is a car I’ve been advocating for Volkswagen to build since at least 2015. Volkswagen has been teasing us with the idea of a re-born Microbus since 2001, an electric one specifically since 2015, and now, incredibly, it’s here. With a build-up as long as this, with so much hype, and with a nostalgic heritage heavier than almost any other car out there, is there any way anything VW can produce that will answer everyone’s dreams and expectations? Probably not, but I do think what VW has done is pretty damn good, and represents a milestone not just for VW, but for EVs in general. Let’s get into it.
Why The ID.Buzz Is So Important For VW
Thanks to the Dieselgate emissions-cheating fiasco about seven years ago, Volkswagen was forced to abandon diesel tech and dive into electric vehicles, a move that, in hindsight, would have made sense even if the whole emissions-cheating-debacle never happened. But just moving to EVs wasn’t enough: VW needed to reclaim a lot of goodwill, to dig back into their history and find what endeared them to the world in the first place.
The Beetle has always been VW’s spirit insect, and its values of honesty and humility served VW well, but they’d discontinued their modern tributes to the Beetle in 2019, and needed to find something new. Happily, they had another vehicle that was nearly as laden with character and nostalgia and emotion as the Bug, the famous box-on-wheels, the countercultural icon, the hippy’s choice: The Microbus.
VW understood the need for redemption-via-bus so well that they even made an entire commercial about this very concept in 2019:
As you can tell from that ad, the resurrected Bus isn’t just a new EV for VW; it’s redemption.
That’s a hell of a lot to put on any car.
Why The ID.Buzz Is So Important For EVs In General
For VW specifically, the ID.Buzz is heritage and history and, well let’s just come out and say it, a corporation’s attempt to materialize what they want the very soul of their organization to be. For EVs in general, it’s an extremely important vehicle because it may be the most visible and powerful example of a concept that EV makers already know – or at least suspect – is true: That mainstream EV driving dynamics and powertrain characteristics are so generally similar, it will make every other aspect of a car, especially emotional things like styling, even more important than they already are.
It’s not just me asserting this – designers like Henrik Fisker have noted this, too. Nearly all EVs have strong acceleration from a dead stop, minimal noise, similar basic packaging – they’re fundamentally less diverse technically than combustion cars, which means that the way people will decide what they want to drive will be even more affected by factors like the look, what special features are offered, what clever design and utilitarian touches are incorporated, the cultural associations made by the car, and so on.
The ID.Buzz is a great example of this because it doesn’t really have any technical uniqueness of its own; it’s built on the same MEB platform as the ID.4, just stretched a bit, but if you think about it, the VW Type 2 Transporter (you know, the old-school Bus) has always been like this.
The Bus was the first real product VW designed as an actual, post-war, independent company, because the Beetle was designed before there was a Volkswagen, starting its life as the KdF-Wagen. But when VW introduced the Type 2 in 1950 to fill the need for a small, useful commercial vehicle, it borrowed the drivetrain from the Beetle, and then, later in the Bus’ life, VW used the drivetrain from the VW Type 4. The Bus has never had its own, unique technical/drivetrain underpinnings, really, so this latest iteration is actually very much in keeping with the Type 2’s spirit.
So, with this in mind, the ID.Buzz is an ideal case study of the everything-else-is-important concept. Mechanically, it’s no different than, say, an ID.4, but everything else is very different. Whatever the Buzz ends up being, it may also become a template for a future where common drivetrains can underpin some very unique, possibly even niche bodystyles, designs, and classifications of cars.
At the moment, even if it didn’t have its distinctive style, it would already be unique as the only real mass-market electric passenger van out there. Of course, that style is important, arguably the most single important aspect of the ID.Buzz, so let’s dig into that.
The Look
People definitely notice the ID.Buzz. Even the famously reserved Danes that roam and bicycle the streets of Copenhagen noticed these two-toned, candy-colored oblongs, and they pointed and smiled and waved, actions I was told by other Danes were more rare than albino unicorn sightings. The Buzz is one of those cars that makes people happy to see drive by, and I think that’s important.
A lot of why is because the Buzz is borrowing goodwill from all those decades of earlier VW buses, though I don’t really think the Buzz is actually a retro design. Yes, it absolutely takes design cues and references from earlier Type 2 VWs, but for the most part, that’s where it stops. Where I’d consider a retro design to be a fundamentally older design re-worked into a modern design vocabulary, I think the ID.Buzz is the opposite, a new design with some bits of vintage-inspired jewelry.
The not-air-intake-vents are a good example of this. Visually they suggest the old vents, but nothing about them says they’re trying to convince anyone they’re actual vents. They’re not fake vents. They’re visual reminders that a vehicle sort of like this one once had vents here. It’s kind of an odd concept.
These retro influences are mostly taken from the T1 and T2 generations of Type 2 bus, while the proportions are more modern, and similar to the post-Vanagon, front-engined Transporters that came later:
The most obvious retro cues are the lines used to delineate the two-tone paint, with the dramatic dip at the front end (that’s from the earliest buses), and the suggestion of the high-mounted engine air intake vents on the E-pillar (yes, E, because there’s kind of two A-pillars going on here) that are lifted from the later T2 buses, and maybe the Vanagon, but I’m pretty sure they were looking more at later T2 “bay window” buses for that.
The proportions, as you can see, are closer to the later Transporters, mostly due to a combination of packaging and safety reasons. Later Transporters needed to shove an engine up front, and so the driver moved back, behind the front axle instead of sitting atop it. This also helped crash safety, so even if the ID.Buzz has its motor low and way in the back, just like the original, it still makes more sense to keep the driver behind the front axle.
The huge windshield and its dramatic rake seek to enclose the passenger cabin and minimize any sort of hood area, visually keeping a one-box look, but there’s plenty of actual distance from driver to front bumper. This under-dash/under-windshield area houses a lot of equipment like the HVAC system and cooling system and power inverter hardware, as well as providing a lot of crash protection.
Circling back to the pillars, I think one of the biggest changes from the concept bus to the production one was changing the pillars from being body-colored to black. I decided to see how much of a difference body-colored pillars would make on the production Buzz, just out of curiosity:
Those white pillars do make the Buzz a bit more retro, but the blacked-out ones are definitely a bit sleeker, and certainly more in keeping with current design tastes. It’s because of details like this – and the decision to not use some sort of modern take on round headlights – that I don’t think this design is completely retro. Personally, I think I might have preferred something more obviously retro, though I can understand why VW would want to hedge their bets a bit there and make something that can move between modernity and the past with a bit more ease.
Overall, I think the VW design team did a fantastic job on the exterior design. Riding that knife edge between retro and modern isn’t easy, and while my own silly preferences edge to the downright cartoony, I think they managed to avoid falling into that trap.
They made something that really looks like nothing else on the road, gets plenty of attention, and still doesn’t feel like a car in a Halloween costume. I’m impressed.
Oh, are you interested in the drag coefficient of the ID.Buzz? I sort of am, since it’s a big box and all. It’s 0.285 Cd, which is pretty good, especially considering that the original T2 bay window bus had a Cd of 0.42. The frontal area is still pretty huge, though, as there’s a lot of Buzz to shove through the air.
If you’re still wondering about how much heavy lifting that two-tone paint is doing, we can evaluate that by looking at a monochrome one:
I picked one that’s even in a boring color, basic black, just to give a real challenge here, because in all black, most of the retro design elements are rendered invisible, and we’re forced to confront the overall form of the Buzz on its own. And, in looking at it this way, I think we can determine that, yes, the two tone paint is doing a lot of work, especially when it comes to communicating the heritage of the vehicle, but that paint isn’t doing everything.
Even in this form, we still have an interesting-looking vehicle, with novel, unashamedly van-like proportions and interesting detailing, especially on things like the web-like front air intake under the bumper.
I personally can’t imagine getting one of these in monochrome black, but I do think seeing it this way makes me respect the design on its own merits.
Oh, and because I’m still me, a quick word about the lighting: While I still think I’d have preferred more simple, bolder, graphical lighting designs, what we see on the ID.Buzz fits with the rest of the ID lineup, and I understand why VW chose that path. There are sequential indicators front and rear, which is appreciated.
I do think for the US we may lose that rear amber sequential indicator, because the illuminated area appears a bit too small for US lighting standards. I guess we’ll see.
There’s no way around the fact that the more modern, aggressive lighting design does change the tone of the iconic bus car-face. Maybe it’s more sophisticated, it’s definitely more modern, but it is also less friendly. I understand why these decisions were made, but I’m not sure I’m at a place where I like them.
I do like the thin light bar across the front, though.
Thinking Inside The Box
The original Type 2 was born from a sketch by Dutch VW importer Ben Pon, who described the sort of commercial vehicle he wanted by simply drawing a VW chassis with a big box on top of it. That’s pretty much it. Here, look:
The design brief for the VW Transporter has always just been a box on wheels, and the best thing you can say about this latest iteration is that it still is just that: a box on wheels.
What’s nice is that thanks to the very flat MEB platform, there’s a lot of very open, very empty box to go around. Even with the passenger compartment shifted back behind the front axle, there’s still a cavernous amount of space inside the Buzz, and it’s all very usable. It feels significantly bigger inside than almost any SUV I’ve been in, for example, because, duh, it’s a van.
It’s also important to note that this is the short wheelbase one that I tested. When these come to America (it’s expected for the 2024 model year) they will be a bit longer. How much longer no one would tell me in numbers, but judging from the distance between sets of hands used to gesture with, I’d say it’s likely to be between a foot and 18 inches longer.
These short-wheelbases ID.Buzzes have just two rows of seats, though there’s not only plenty of room for a third, there’s even armrests already in place, complete with little icons of the car you’re currently inside:
The US-spec long wheelbase ones will almost certainly come with three rows, and I suspect that will be on option for the short wheelbase as well, though nobody was willing to confirm that.
The cargo area is really vast and open, and while the seats don’t fold away into clever nothingness, with the addition of an optional load platform the folded seats form an unbroken flat expanse that you could easily sleep two people on with no trouble.
In fact, VW showed us a little custom rig one of their PR people used to travel all over Europe, sleeping and cooking and living and perhaps even loving in the Buzz:
That load platform also has a hinged section to get access to cargo you can store underneath:
This is handy, but I feel like the large middle section would have benefitted from a hinged lid, too, since it’s pretty deep and hard to reach the nether regions under there. I’m not sure the pictures adequately convey the height involved, too, which is the biggest difference from most mainstream SUV interiors and even many vans, because the MEB platform, like most modern EV platforms, is extremely low and flat.
The interior design and materials I think are quite good, though it’s hard not to think of the ID.Buzz concept and feel a bit let down. If you’ve forgotten what that one was like, here’s a reminder:
The concept had those fantastic wood (or wood-looking) floors and the complex track system that let you slide components around and those captain’s chairs and that glass roof and that sofa-like rear seat with the side bolsters– it felt like a little expensive Air BnB on wheels.
The production one is sadly saddled with the cruel hand of reality, which means more realistically affordable materials and interior mechanisms. Some attempts to keep the feel of the concept were retained, though. That center console still exists, and is removable (as I described in my post about all the Easter Eggs VW crammed in this thing) and it was hinted – though no one would go on the record – that a big glass roof would be an option by the time these get to America, which I think is very important, as it both suggests the huge old canvas sunroofs of the early Type 2s and does so much to open up and make an interior feel airy and expansive.
The dash has inserts of a wood-resembling plastic material that feels and looks great, and ties it a bit to the Ikea-like wonder of the concept. The switchgear and instrument cluster and center stack infotainment display and I think even steering wheel are all taken from other members of the ID family, and, again, this isn’t all that different than how the original Type 2s were, with instruments and knobs and whatevers the same or quite similar to what you’d find in, say, a Beetle.
Oh, and yes, that center screen uses the same UX as the other ID cars, so if you like that, great, if not, my condolences. You can always use Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, though, so that helps. I also think the HVAC control buttons just below the screen don’t illuminate at night, like they don’t on the ID.4, and that’s ridiculous. VW should fix that.
And while there aren’t real captain’s chairs up front that swivel 180°, those front seats do have a seat massaging option and are upholstered in bright colors and friendly materials, and on their backs they have an airline-like tray so back seat passengers can eat complicated foods or use a laptop or perhaps paint the blurry landscapes with watercolors that they see whizzing by the windows.
The interior colors and materials are color-coded to the exterior colors, which works well, and I’m happy to say that I didn’t see any version that was the usual expected sea of charcoal-gray everything making the interior a dark cavern. The Buzz’ interior feels airy and light and is a generally pleasant place to be.
There’s a good amount of cubbies and cupholders and little storage areas throughout, as you’d expect from a passenger-carrying minivan, and plenty of USB-C ports as well, as we now all expect, too. Though I feel like it wouldn’t have killed them to throw in a few legacy old style USB ports, since I think everyone has at least a drawer full of old USB cables as it is.
There’s also a 230V/300W Euro-spec wall outlet in here (I’m sure that’ll be a 115V US-spec one for ours) but it’s located at the base of the front passenger seat, which strikes me as a strange choice. Wouldn’t this be more useful in the back cargo area? I guess you can always use an extension cord, but still.
All things considered, the interior design and packaging is really good, but there are two extremely significant issues that I noted. First is ventilation.
The rear windows do not open in the ID.Buzz, not even in a little pop-out vent window way. And, even worse, there’s no HVAC vents or controls aft of the front seats, which means that the whole rear 3/4 of the van is relying on airflow from the front windows and HVAC vents, and this is simply not acceptable.
Now, it was strongly hinted – again unconfirmed and off the record and with PR people darting their heads around nervously – that the US-spec model would have full HVAC vents and controls for the rear. Perhaps this will be the case on all the long-wheelbase models, but I can’t figure out why anyone would think this wouldn’t be needed or wanted on the short wheelbase one, too. I’m pretty sure Europeans sweat, too. I’ve been on a subway in Berlin, I know it happens. They get cold, too! The Buzz needs to have better rear ventilation options, period.
Not to get all crazy here, but look at this cutaway of a 1960s-era Microbus:
See what number 2 is there on that diagram? It says “Special roof air-circulating system.” Even six or so decades ago VW understood that you gotta have air for everyone at the rear. This shouldn’t have taken them by surprise.
Honestly, I can’t fathom why this wasn’t a part of the design from the get-go, for all versions. The VW ID.5 I sat in has rear seat HVAC controls and vents, as you can see above, and it’s not even close to as big inside. I’m baffled. [Ed note: Really? I am also baffled. Seems easy for automakers to get this right – MH]
The other big issue has to do with visibility out the windshield. For the most part, the visibility in the Buzz is excellent, with one notable exception: up. Because you’re so far back from the windshield, it’s difficult to see what’s right above you, and if what’s above you is, say, a traffic light, that can be a problem.
Most of the traffic lights in Copenhagen were quite low; in the US, many are suspended quite high above the road on wires. Often they’re across the intersection, so they’d be low enough to see, but not always. I’d have to test this on American roads to be sure if it was really an issue, and I’d suspect that VW did its own extensive testing, but sitting inside the bus did make me wonder about that very specific sort of visibility.
How Is It To Drive?
In a word, easy. It’s easy to drive, and that seems like the right path to take for this machine. If we’re honest, the original Microbus wasn’t by most definitions good to drive. It was entertaining for many people, including myself, as I kind of love the strange, loud, slow magic carpet feeling of tooling around in an old Type 2. But it was never something you’d want to take on a canyon road, and fast freeway driving was more of a chore than a pleasure.
The ID.Buzz isn’t ever chore, even if it’s not exactly engaging to drive. The acceleration is adequate – the 201 horsepower motor and its one-speed gearbox are enough to shove this 5,000-plus pound box from a stop to 62 mph in 10.2 seconds. For an EV, that seems slow, but in actual use, I think it’s fine. In the overall context of VW Microbuses, it’s the freaking USS Enterprise.
Top speed is only about 90 mph, but, again, for what this is, 90 mph is plenty. That said, the US will likely (again think about all the PR people hedging and no one wanting to say anything for sure and maybe the nervous looks) get a twin-engined AWD version that should have significantly more power, so I’d expect the long wheelbase’s power and 0-60 numbers to be much different.
Even so, I didn’t think the single-motor Buzz felt too slow. It felt just fine.
The turning circle is better than I expected as well (36.4 feet), and parking and other general driving maneuvers were comfortable and generally effortless.
Like most modern cars, the ID.Buzz is crammed full of sensors and cameras, so you get that nice 360° overhead view and a clear backup camera view and with the minimal overhangs and nimble control, I don’t see why anyone would have any issues parallel parking this thing.
Oh, and if you do have a weird parking situation, the Buzz offers a system, as seen on some other recent cars, where it can store a set of driving and parking maneuvers that can be “played back” on demand, so if you have to do some elaborate dance to park your car without hitting trash cans or chicken coops, you can “teach” the Buzz once and it’ll do it just as you showed it, with input from its various sensors in case things moved, every time.
It also has Level 2-ish semi-automated driving in the form of dynamic cruise control and lane keeping and automatic braking and all, that, so if you want the car to do a good chunk of the driving for you, that’s possible.
I drove the Buzz for the better part of a day all over Copenhagen and with a quick jaunt into Sweden. The seating position is great, the visibility is good, the driving controls are where you expect them, and the overall driving sensation is – and I mean this in a positive way, strangely – forgettable. Maybe the only surprising thing is that for such a tall vehicle, it’s not top-heavy, because all the weight is as low as possible, so in that context, maybe there’s a bit of a surprise.
But this is more a car about traveling than driving, if that makes sense. It’s a vehicle about the journey you’re making, the people you’re making it with, and the places you see through all those windows. It’s not about the physical act of how the car reacts to you and the road, as long as it does what it’s supposed to do, without making a big fuss.
If you’re looking at one of these to autocross, you’re either making a grave mistake or making a hell of a point. And that’s fine, because I think the way VW handled the driving experience was right, and makes sense for the whole point of this thing.
How Long Can You Drive It And Other Battery And Charging Stuff
It’s kind of funny that EV reviews place so much emphasis on range and charging, because combustion car reviews would never devote a whole section to gas tank size or the re-fueling experience. That’s because those issues are very solved for combustion cars, and things are still not yet settled for EVs, so this is important. So, with that in mind, the ID.Buzz is supposed to go about 262 miles on a full charge, according to the combined WLTP cycle used in Europe. American EPA estimates will likely be different, but I’d think 250 or so miles seems about right.
The Buzz I drove was showing a full battery range of 457 kilometers/283 miles, and after a full day of driving around all over the city, we had used a bit under half the battery capacity. You can see below, near the end of our driving day, where the battery is reading 56% and 218 km/135 miles of remaining range. That’s not bad.
The ID.Buzz can charge using up to a 170 kW charger, on a DC fast charger. This isn’t the fastest available charging for an EV, but VW says it’ll take the 77 kWh battery from five percent to 80% in just 30 minutes, which isn’t bad. There’s also AC charging for home or slower chargers at 11 kW levels.
I Sure Wish I Knew How Much It’ll Cost In America
The base price for the short-wheelbase Euro-spec model starts at about $54,000, though I was told that does include taxes and other sorts of monies that help keep those Europeans in excellent free healthcare systems and all that. When this comes to America, it’ll be the bigger one with very likely more equipment and most likely a second motor as well, at least optionally, so I wouldn’t get my hopes up about this starting below, say, $60,000 or so.
That’s not cheap. But, I suspect that for the people considering one of these, at least initially, this will be exactly the vehicle they want, for a wide variety of complicated and likely irrational reasons, which is fine, because that’s how cars work.
Will these be competitive for people who aren’t smitten by the nostalgic allure of an old Microbus? I think it’s possible, for a couple reasons: First, there simply aren’t any other roomy EV vans around, period. So if you want a big, roomy sliding-door van with room for people and stuff and you could camp in and you want it all-electric, so far this is the only show in town.
Also, it genuinely is charming, even to people who don’t have experience with old VW buses. It’s bright and friendly and fun and doesn’t look or feel like 99% of the cars on the road, and there’s always an appeal to that.
Okay, Final Thoughts
Re-imagining an icon is never easy, but I think VW pulled it off pretty well, at least when I force myself to be realistic and accept that we can’t all drive exotic concept cars. They captured enough of the fun spirit of the original without making a caricature, and the very nature of a big open box on wheels means this thing can’t help but be useful and flexible.
They need to sort out the ventilation issues, and I’d love it if eventually some more price-accessible version could be possible, because this feels like it would be great for exactly what the original was great for: Everything.
Well, everything that didn’t require a lot of speed, but that’s a big set of things. Families, road trips, a space of your own to do whatever in, from camping to drugs to sex to filling full of big dogs to hauling cumbersome objects to mobile workspaces to whatever. It’s an open volume of space that’s mobile, fundamentally, and that’s why the original Bus worked so well, and it’s still why this one can, too.
Because it’s always just a box on wheels, dressed up in the bright hues of nostalgia or not, and there is always a place for such simple, good ideas.
As I’ve said several times, I do love the design of the ID Buzz. I’m in agreement that it has retro cues without being a full retro design, which is a good middle ground. It looks great and it’s clearly a very useful vehicle…but I’m in agreement with a lot of the folks commenting here who aren’t sure who this is for.
It’s safe to assume that this will probably be around 50-70k when it gets to our shores…which puts it firmly out of reach of probably 80% of the population off the bat….and doesn’t bring in the same type of working class audience that the OG vans did. So, who will buy it?
I guess a few nostalgic hippie Boomers with disposable income and social media influencer types….but who else? This isn’t going to work as a family car for most people due to the lack of EV infrastructure, and like pretty much all current EVs other than the Bolt and Nissan Leaf variants it’s not within reach of most people. And even if you could make it work as a financial stretch, why would you when there are so many compromises and you’re paying a similar amount to, say, a RAV 4 Prime or several luxury options?
And don’t get me started on the VW tech dystopia interior that they’re still ramming down our throats despite endless complaints from literally everyone except VW Fanboys who just love their MK8s. If it has haptic anything on the steering wheel and no nobs for radio and climate control it’s a no dice off the bat for me and many others. But anyway, I digress.
I like this car. I definitely think it captures some of the charming VW cheerful design ethos that made so many love them in the first place, but I don’t think the direction they’re going in is true to their peoples’ car roots. This is going to wind up like most other EVs…as a status piece for the well-off. And I think that kind of sucks, even though the wife and I could afford one if we really wanted to.
I just can’t get over VW’s image as working class heroes, and they don’t seem to have any desire to reclaim it, although no one does. Cars will continue to get more expensive, and these companies don’t care because their margins will keep going up and they can always get suckers to take out more and more reckless loans to be able to show their cars off on Instagram…oh well.
I like it more than I thought I would, but I’m just so exhausted with $60k+ (I know it’s not official yet) vehicles (EVs or otherwise).
I hate to say this, but the design can’t decide if it is modern or retro, so it fails on both fronts. Too compromised to be fully modern, too angry looking to evoke the friendliness of the original.
Why make it a box on wheels if the occupants sit that far back? The way it is, looks like a regular minivan with a pompadour. And why on Earth does it need that weird “tackled on” Passat front end (minus grille)? Make up your mind!
I think Hyundai got a much more “VW Bus” like design with their Staria van, or even their Stargazer minivan. It even looks like VW own stylish drawings from the fifties: https://cdn-fastly.thetruthaboutcars.com/media/2022/06/29/8433981/the-birth-of-the-vw-bus-from-first-sketch-to-production.jpg?size=720×845&nocrop=1
Anyway, I am rooting for it to be a success, people buying anything other than ICE SUVs is double good news – both for the planet and for those of us that love rational use of car real state (even when the balcony has a weird roof that pleases no-one).
Here’s a weird parallel… the Myers Manx(!) The thing that made the Type I so popular with kit car manufacturers was its construction. The Beetle was very much what we call a “skateboard” construction today, and you could slap any body you wanted on that chassis/floorpan/powertrain/suspension module as long as you met the hard points. This may be the future of the electric car skateboard.
I’m glad they plan to keep these out of the hands of the poors. We sure don’t want those sorts of people driving around in EV’s.
As you know, many “hands of the poors” aren’t really grabbing ANY new cars these days.
“…average transaction price (ATP) solidly above the $48,000 mark, according to new data released today by Kelley Blue Book.” (Aug 2022)
You make a strong argument for cheap public CITY transportation. Not really sure for the millions of Americans not in bigger cities though.
This was an informative article, but I was, and still am, distracted by unicorns. If albino unicorns are deemed unusually rare in Denmark this suggests that melanistic unicorns are relatively common. This is something I did not know about Denmark.
As the driver of a commercial passenger van – I’m disappointed that this will be the best option for EV passenger vans when it comes out.
Winner by default I guess?
I can’t see many builders getting one of these, but I imagine every gourmet coffee roaster and fusion restaurant near me will have one for doing their deliveries.
It might even displace the Citroen H van as a mobile coffee shop.
And yes, I’m taking the piss out of hipsters a bit here, but sometimes even commercial customers want a van that has some style along with it’s practicality.
I actually kind of really want one of these, but I’m invoking the Starbucks Product Nomenclature Principle on this ridiculous name – if I get one I’m not saying I own an “I.D. Buzz.” It’s a damn microbus.
I’m sure there will be a market for debadging the van and getting some retro Microbus lettering on it!
As the owner of a 20 year old VW T4 and a not infrequent viewer of the more recent T5 and T6 generations…it’s hard not to think that the Buzz is actually looking to fill the niche of the smaller VW Caddy and Caddy Life rather than the current T6. Which is fine, especially in Europe.
Leveraging off the retro value of the T1 and (especially for North America) the T2 is just a cleverish marketing exercise… especially if the vehicle itself is not really fit for purpose for the market in question.
Personally, I wish my old 2.5 litre intercooled turbo diesel powered AWD T4 accelerated like the single engine Buzz…and could manage 90 mph.
Man, I’m glad you acknowledged that the lighting design on the Buzz makes it look less happy and friendly than its ancestors. I was starting to feel like a crazy person, like it was only me who saw that and kept mentioning it over and over ad nauseum. It’s still got some great characteristics, don’t get me wrong, but those headlights in particular are a big miss. Oh well.
You know what this thing is going to do, though, if nothing else? It’s going to make minivans cool again. It may have squinty eyes, a stupid name, and a user interface designed by a sadist, but it’s undeniably cool. For whatever reason, it’s one of the most mainstream-cool vehicles to be released in years, possibly decades. And it’s a minivan. I know people are just saying “van,” and that’s fine, but we all know what this is. Which is fantastic, because vans are incredibly useful, much more useful for most people than crossovers, and a revival of that segment would mean more options for people who just want a big ol’ rolling box with huge sliding doors that they can do whatever with. I love me a van, and I’m excited to see if the ID Buzz leads to more activity in the world of vans.
I think too that the round headlights would have really made this car. As it is, it’s not as funky and friendly looking as vw bus should be. A big miss in my books and seriously hurts the desirability.
The two iPad dash is a mess. The front cut out grille is a mess. The lights need to be round. There needs to be removable/reversible seating for four in the back. There should be multiple types of flooring, including faux wood laminate and carpet. All windows need to be able to go up and down, or at least pop out. The vents in the back should be real, and open and close from the inside, directly.
On the positive side, many of these issues will be remedied by the inevitable plethora of aftermarket mods that are certain to accompany its roll out. So I’m still hopeful.
Not crazy, agree, most everything works except the front view, don’t really care for how they split up the two tone paint either.
My first vehicle was a ‘72 Westy, so I’m congenitally inclined to dismiss any that doesn’t look like the OG. That said, I’ve been working on trying to discard my preconceptions and just evaluate cars without the baggage. It’ll take some time to do that with the direct front shot of this. In the earlier teaser article, my first reaction to the head-on shot was, ‘that looks like a worse-for-wear Stormtrooper rising out of a vat of acid (both corrosive AND psychedelic)!’
Not a good look imo.
I am not a fan of minivans (although I’d take a minivan over an SUV in a heartbeat), but I could easily see us trading in the LEAF for one of these so my wife and I could schlep the almost-grown-up kids and the three dogs around on family trips. Not to mention, that cargo area looks fantastic for hauling hay or other bulky items.
VW built their brand on radical honesty. Remember the legendary print ads in the 60s? The dirt simple engineering of air-cooled era? The minimalist beauty of the Passat and Golf (up until recently). This is always a core value. The fake air intakes and two tone paint are absurd and a deeply cynical attempt to deceive and strip-mine the goodwill of the VW brand from a time when it actually stood for something. This repeats all the sins of the New Beetle.
The double A pillar is disgusting. Are cars not for driving? Why are they purposely sacrificing forward visibility for styling? Maybe they count on forward active collision alert braking assist monitoring to do most of the driving. This same seating position was used in the Beetle with the driver several feet from the windshield. This gave the general feeling of driving in a bubble. Not great. Not engaging.
Cars these days have strayed so far from fundamentals of human centered driving machines it hurts my soul. Theres no going back and VW like everyone else has surrendered in the name of technology.
Either the double A pillar goes on the van, or VW needed some obscenely expensive to produce and replace Avatar style glass-bending BS to get rid of the first A pillar. I remember stupid POS Saturn cars having issues with weirdly curved windshields getting replaced.
A lot of cars with more cab-forward designs need to have an additional window in front of the door windows. That’s just part of making windows roll down. Would you say the last-gen Honda Fit at least had half of a second A pillar? That little window isn’t so little.
>This repeats all the sins of the New Beetle.The double A pillar is disgusting. Are cars not for driving? Why are they purposely sacrificing forward visibility for styling?<
As previously seen on the Fiat 500L, the split A-pillar is not for styling, it's for safety. In order to conform to roof crush standards in a car of this configuration, a single A-pillar would be intolerably wide. Despite appearances, the split pillar provides the necessary level of strength while impeding vision far less than a singular fat pillar would.
Wait, they seriously have a production minivan in 2023 that don’t have opening windows on the sliding doors OR 2nd and 3rd row air vents? Sounds like they designed this as a cargo van first and passenger van 2nd. That would also explain why the USA is late availability because if there aren’t windows or vents behind the front row this thing is DOA.
FFS Chrysler figured it out in 1996! And by 2005 the Honda Odyssey had a sliding door window that completely opened like a regular car door window….
the seats should be over the front wheel. Having this bulge in the front is not necessary and seems wasteful for an e-car.
Of course the crunch zone is bigger but that’s the only reason I can imagine we need the bulge.
I mean, that’s a pretty big reason though. There’s no way a true cabover van where your legs are the crumple zone is going to be able to pass the small overlap crash tests we have these days. Probably not even the regular frontal crashes for that matter. A van that can’t legally be sold in most of the civilized world is DOA. Without the bulge this doesn’t exist in production form.
unfortunately yeah, so you do think it’s a big reason /pondering. There is some merit there, but come on can’t we find another technology there?! I think that the Smart didn’t have that much, there is a video where it literally bounces off off an S-Klasse.
they could have done the bulge in the shape of the old bus Typ 2 and just push the chairs farther back. Nothing would have stopped them from putting the windows farther to the front, a bit like it’s done with the BMW i3 or some French minivans (Renault).
Excellent review. Thanks!
From the pics and that drawing it looks like it might actually fit a sheet of plywood, especially with a long base model, and that is important to those of us who don’t have kids but love their Dodge Grand Caravan for hauling just about everything. I like the styling and all and it’s on my short list for my first EV, but it will have to compete with the Silverado EV and for that price I don’t know if it will win that cage match.
Or, I can save $60k and use that to drive my Caravan for the next 16 years or the wheels fall off. Or keep the Caravan and get a Charger EV. Hmmm….kind of like that one.
“Because you’re so far back from the windshield, it’s difficult to see what’s right above you, and if what’s above you is, say, a traffic light, that can be a problem.”
Because it’s just another ID car they’ve dressed up like a bus. It also means there’s 2 A pillars blocking your corner view. It’s the most compromised part of the design because they didn’t want to fully engineer it on its own. It was never going to be truly forward control, but the proportions are ridiculous.
Far back from windscreen is a problem for tall people in basically all cars. Even worse in places that have a single diagonal string of lights because they cost save road safety. Just lean forward like all the cloud breathers do.
A1 and A2 brute pillars don’t have to be bad, Fiat 500L didn’t do a terrible job (at least when i sat in one at a car show), but really only A2 should be sturdy, A1 needs to be thin for visibility.
Van looks great, but as one graphic artist to another, I want to congratulate you on the shadow effect on the top image caption. Nicely done!
Thanks for the thoughtful review Jason. I’m kind of wondering now why VW didn’t release any of their previous microbus concepts. I really wanted one when I first saw the latest concept vehicle, but not so much anymore after I saw the production model and its hefty price tag.
Volkswagen managed to make a minivan that actually looks somewhat appealing. I think it will be interesting to see how it does in the US. Everyone I know who has kids wouldn’t be caught dead in a minivan. The stigma is too much.
I think that the people getting excited about this are all planning to buy it used in ten or fifteen years. I know its not a lifestyle vehicle because I haven’t seen a single picture of it with a surfboard on its roof. The infotainment is too crap for the techbros. I don’t think the hype will carry it–these will be rental vehicles in 5 years.
That is of course assuming that EV’e will be a viable purchase at 10-15 years old. I know EVs are the future but we are putting the cart WAY in front of the horse on them lately. There are so many points on this but my main one will be that increasingly, because of the techy-ness of them, EVs are being increasingly viewed as disposable. In 10-15 years I’d imagine an EV would at least need the battery pack replaced and are you gonna drop whatever ungodly amount of money on that for a 15 year old vehicle? I don’t know that I would. YMMV though.
Given the way new car prices are going, it’s possible that replacing the battery in a 15 year old EV that is otherwise in excellent condition might not seem as crazy as it does now. :-/
They really need to bring the SWB version to North America. The proportions seem right with what we’ve seen now. I’m kinda worried that we haven’t seen what the LWB looks like yet because VW wants to get everybody charged up for this cool van before dropping its awkwardly long American cousin on everybody.
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Remember Jon Lovitz in “A League Of Their own?” “If I had your job, I’d kill myself!”
The issue is that EVs, right now, have a high cost of entry, and although the van may evoke a simpler time, it can’t match the pricing of it.
I like it, though. EVs as vans make a whole lot of sense, and it’s a shame we don’t see more of them. I’m 50/50 on this being a good seller in North America: nostalgia versus “too cute” will likely be an argument for some shoppers.
The ID series of BEVs is pretty awful. I’m pretty sure VW had to restart e-Golf and e-Up! production after VW found themselves being unable to sell ID.3s in any significant numbers.
If VW skipped the whole retro paintjob and retro theme of the ID.Buzz I don’t think I would have minded it much. It looks like the FWD VW vans and there’s nothing wrong with that. However once you give it an old air cooled VW Bus paintjob and try to pass it off as new VW bus they’re just being dishonest. The only similarity this bus has with the old air cooled VW busses is that it is RWD based.
Gone is the air cooled drivetrain (though active air cooling in BEVs is actually possible and pretty dang practical today).
Gone is the durability and simplicity that old air cooled VW Busses were know for.
Gone is the light weight and the off-roading ability of the old air cooled busses.
Gone is the affordability of the the old air cooled busses.
Gone is the amazing driver’s visibility of the old air cooled busses.
Gone is everything that made the air cooled VW Busses so special.
What’s the target market for this thing? Hippies and Hipsters who made so much money they’re willing to drop $60K+ on blind nostalgia (or the idea of nostalgia for the hipsters and young hippies)?
The Ford Maverick Hybrid has more in common with the old air cooled VW busses than this thing does, and the Maverick hybrid has almost nothing in common with the old air cooled VW busses because it is a unibody crew cab pickup with a short bed. However it’s cheap, fuel efficient, very practical, made in Mexico (like a ton of the air cooled VW busses), etc.
At least the ID.Buggy concept was supposed to have a plastic body, no roof, and actually look like the dune buggies of old.
Volkswagen should have changed their name to Voltswagen, because they stopped making cars for the people long ago.
The ID3 is completly sold out in Europe, delivery times when you order one today is more than a year. Go to mobile.de and try to find a new one.
They restarted e-up production because they can literally not make the ID3 them fast enough and they will also sell every e-up they make at once.
The rant about the colors seems woefully misguided. We’ve endured *decades* of boring-ass paint colors & interior trims; VW should be lauded for actually making something with interesting colors. Even then, the article shows that they will be offering dull solid colors to satisfy the Get Off My Lawn demographic.
Also, the litany of “Gone” comments almost reads like satire. Forget VW, does anyone honestly believe that ANY automaker in 2022+ would release an air-cooled internal combustion vehicle that sacrifices all safety features just to hit those bullet points?!!? Why lament something that realistically has zero chance of ever happening?
Is the new van expensive? Hell yeah, I am priced out of it entirely. So why is it still a good thing that it exists? Because its massive popularity could inspire other automakers to fill-out that category with more attainable vehicles (and hopefully, interesting colors across the board).
I have no problem with exciting colors.
I did not suggest making an air cooled internal combustion engine vehicle. I suggested making an ACTIVELY air cooled BEV drivetrain. BEV stands for Battery Electric Vehicle.
“Gone is the durability and simplicity that old air cooled VW Busses were know for.”
The only way to get that kind of durability and simplicity would be from another air-cooled ICE vehicle, so that’s where it seemed like you were going with that thought.
Nope. a BEV with an actively air cooled drivetrain could easily be simpler than an air cooled ICE drivetrain at least as far as moving parts are concerned.
BEVs can be extremely durable, however most BEVs are designed to maximize range so they compromise durability, weight, ground clearance, driver visibility, practical storage space, etc. in order to increase range via better aerodynamics, lighter drivetrain assemblies, and by giving the vehicles extra large battery packs.
I had a Eurovan back in the day and would buy it again in a heartbeat.
Compact with 5 spd manual transmission and screen windows and a pop up table.
ID Buzz does not come close.
The Multivan currently for sale in the EU is more in my desire.
Hybrid power with removable 29 lb seats and pop up table etc.
Front wheel drive and with the seats on tracks it has a lot going for it.
You can download a brochure from VW UK.
Buzz is DOA and only confirms that VWoA is tone deaf.
I have had 4 GTIs, a Passat, golf R, Cabrio and a Jetta GLI.
They haven’t listened to their customers for years and not made a drivers car for years.
Buzz sounds interesting but lacks the essential elements that made older VDubs interesting.
So they built a fancy German Chevy Astro with a few extra whiz-bangs that are sure to go haywire in a few years, and are charging $60k for it? Got it.
Cool pics, tho!
I like it. I think I like the monotone model more, it looks less retro-y. Why isn’t there a standard 3rd row? Its a van. If I wanted a station wagon, thats what I would buy. Surely the point of something like this is to put people into it.
I think the monochrome model works better because it is not pretending to be something it clearly isn’t – would be better yet without the useless long front roof, in my opinion.
I’m not terribly worried about the price if it stays within the ranges we’re talking about. I suspect customers who aren’t in it for nostalgia will be mainly cross-shopping the longer US version with loaded minivans and those are easily North of 50k.
But Jason, does it baby?
Sling a papoose carrier over the iPad by its strap. The baby rocks to sleep by acceleration and deceleration g-forces. Don’t know about the older ones. Strap them to the roof in a tarp?