It’s no secret that people have been clamoring for a reborn Volkswagen bus for decades, and it’s finally about to happen in America. However, pricing has always been a lingering concern in the backs of everyone’s minds. Would Volkswagen aim to cash in on cultural appeal, or will the brand keep things competitive? It turns out the reality is somewhere in the middle, with Volkswagen pricing the ID. Buzz from $61,545 including a $1,550 freight charge. That’s not terrible for a dedicated three-row EV, even if the Volkswagen ID. Buzz will likely be a cult product rather than a mainstream thing.
So what do you get for $61,545? Well, you get pretty much everything you’d really want in an electric family hauler. We’re talking heated and ventilated front seats with lumbar massage, power sliding doors, 20-inch wheels, three-zone climate control, eight USB ports, a 12.9-inch touchscreen infotainment system, a nine-speaker stereo, and a slightly disappointing yet entirely reasonable-for-a-flying-brick EPA range of 234 miles.
However, you cannot get all-wheel-drive on the base Pro S trim, or paint that isn’t greyscale, meaning you’d need to step up to the Pro S Plus to even gain the option of spinning all four wheels. For $65,045 including freight, the Pro S Plus adds an easy opening function for the sliding doors and liftgate, a 14-speaker Harman/Kardon sound system, a tow hitch, a heads-up display, a movable false floor for the cargo area, and panoramic camera system. That seems like decent feature content for a $3,500 upcharge, but if you want to pay even more, options open up.
For instance, two-tone paint will run you $995, while captain’s chairs in the second row run an additional $695 on the rear-wheel-drive model, and come standard on the Pro S Plus AWD, which adds a front motor, a heated windshield, the captain’s chairs, and a whopping $4,500 over the rear-wheel-drive model for a grand total of $69,545 including freight, with the caveat of reducing range by a mere three miles to 231. Want to tip the scales over $70,000? Add either a panoramic glass roof for $1,495, the aforementioned two-tone paint, or both, why not? Even at just over $70,000, a fully loaded three-row EV with massaging front seats for that sort of money doesn’t seem exorbitant.
Oh, and if exclusivity’s on your mind, Volkswagen’s also offering an ID. Buzz 1st Edition, stickering for $67,045 for the rear-wheel-drive model and $71,545 for the all-wheel-drive model. It gets a weird mix of equipment, ditching the tow hitch, available heated windshield, and heads-up display offered on the Pro S Plus model but getting an electrochromic electronically-tintable panoramic moonroof, a roof rack, the two-tone paint, special wheels, special floor mats, special badging, and what Volkswagen refers to as “Special owner’s gifts.” If you’re a fan of Cheech and Chong, you can refer to them as paraphernalia. It’s all love.
Alright, so the Volkswagen ID. Buzz is expensive for a family hauler, but considering the three-row Kia EV9 starts at $56,395, it’s not a bad value if you truly need three rows, want an EV, and are feature-driven. Hell, even a loaded Toyota Sienna stickers for $54,595 including freight, so on feature content and practicality, the ID. Buzz actually seems well-positioned. Do we wish it was cheaper? Absolutely, but we knew this was a premium product from the start. Expect the first examples to finally roll into American showrooms before the year is through.
(Photo credits: Volkswagen)
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Over a decade late and many dollars short of a reasonable price point. How’d that work out for Ford when Mach Es were around $70K a couple years ago?
I haven’t felt like VW really cares about the US market for a long time, and this just reinforces my feelings.
The ‘People’s Car Company’ isn’t.
Is it even affordable in europe?
they get a regular ass two row version and a cargo version. i dont think we get either of those. both would be cheaper.
It’s not awful, but for that price I absolutely loathe the stripped down and hideous tech bro minimalist interior.
This keeps being referred to as “Retro”. I don’t see anything at all retro about it.
We bought our xc90 PHEV off lease earlier this year, thinking we’d potentially trade it in on an id.buzz when they hit the market… But with that sticker price and range, zero chance. The Volvo is our road trip car, at least 4x per year we’re driving 250+ miles with two kids and tons of crap. I’m sure we’d get far less than the listed range on the VW in those conditions.
And I’m sure our use case is not uncommon. Boggles the mind that VW thought this set of specs was dialed in to their customers’ needs. Really a shame. Hopefully in a year or two we’ll see a bigger battery/improved efficiency/better pricing. Get this to (at least) 300 miles of (ideally AWD) range and a price of 60k nicely optioned, and we’ll be talking.
Definitely not on board with the “not bad” headline on this one.
I don’t hate these, but it’s pretty cynical marketing to position it as a spiritual successor to the VW Bus.
From what I’ve seen, this is just a pretty conventional minivan, and the 5 seat version is just a giant hatchback.
In markets outside of the US, the VW Transporter has remained on sale as the actual successor to the Bus this whole time, and they still get used in the exact same way. Here in the UK I see countless Transporters every day that have been bought as a family “adventure vehicle” and fitted out in the back with whatever setup works best for them.
They can be incredibly versatile and a basic Transporter is a blank canvas.
One of my closest friends lives and works out of his awesome Transporter camper with his partner as they tour Europe, whilst my brother and his family have one kitted out as a spacious family car that can be also taken on camping trips and used as a beach vehicle.
I really don’t see how the ID Buzz could be used the same way, as although it looks like a van, it isn’t one.
I am $70,000, I said. I am $70,000 I cried. And I can’t even say why.
They need to make a high-roof Samba version
In a few years, our dependable friend, depreciation, will save the day.
Not if no-one buys them in the first place…
Yeah I said that about the Buick Regal TourX. But then nobody bought them. So now they’re nearly impossible to find used.
I see them now and then but am shocked what they are asking.
The certified pre-owned car of your dreams in three years.
After the first year, I expect these to be heavily discounted or for VW to launch a stripped down version.
Hopefully enough people buy these new. I still want one as our next car, but I can’t afford it new (unless they throw $10-15k cash on the hood). Hopefully they depreciate more than average…
The range doesn’t bother me much. We are doing good to go two hours without stopping because of our two-year old. His sister is due in December. We will be lucky to drive to the next town over without needing to stop!
Way back when the Concept 1 Beetle of Freeman Thomas made the auto shows, I became interested in VW again. And when I read the Car & Driver review of the New Beetle, written by Brock Yates, I knew this was the next new car I was going to buy. I ordered my red NB TDI in 2000 and enjoyed 16 years of economic bliss at 52 mpg.
VW always meant affordable. This van, promised for almost 2 decades, is so disappointing. You know, it got me to thinking that this can be the stake in the heart of VW’s relevance in the US. There is a reason why at one time, I saw lots of VW Jettas and New Beetles on the road back in the late 90’s early 2000’s…… cause they were in reach of most every working person. This thing? Not so much. And those VW’s of yesteryear have been replaced by Hyundai’s and Kias.
As others have said, I expect these to be largely sold to retired flower children who think a VW Bus EV for running around town is pretty far out.
If anyone shopping a Sienna for soccer practice duty decides to get one of these instead, I’ll be shocked. I assume it is a similar size as the Sienna and EV9? It certainly doesn’t look that big, but pictures are deceiving.
I like the design, and would prefer to lease a VW product anyway, so waiting for the crazy lease deals would be no problem. 230 miles of range though….don’t love that. I also see what appears to be zero buttons on that center stack besides the hazard lights. Also do not like that.
Not bad?! It’s terrible. But it’s a cash grab money play on Boomers nostalgia. So, I think they will still find plenty of buyers since a lot of Boomers still have plenty of money. For any other demographic groups though: good luck.
Add 5 or ten grand of dealer mark-up, and sales will be slower than they should be.
The two-tone paint should be standard. Otherwise it looks like a normal van, and loses a very important visual feature.
The VW ID. model designation is supposed to mean “Intelligent Design”. Two capital letters and a dot make it clumsy and clunky. ID in English means something very different, so there is no communication to the consumers there.
On a lighter note, it looks great, is very practical and is loaded with features.
A low-mileage used one in about three years should be around 50% off, as better batteries with less weight, quicker charging and longer range replace the current lithium-based units.
In 1965, a new Volkswagen Station Wagon (Bus/Kombi/etc.) cost about $2250 out the door. That was just a little over 10% of the price of a house.
Today the median price is $426,000. The base price of a new VW Bus equivalent comes in at a bit over 16% of that. That will make sales an uphill battle, unless there is money on the frunk and 0% financing.
How much for a gas version of this instead? I’ve never been a VW fan because reliability, but I really liked the look of this. Anyone who thought this was going to be affordable had their head in the sand.
Nostalgia= premium price (Land Cruiser, Bronco, etc).
Combine that with the increased price that most EVs carry, and this was never meant to be anything other than a rich families 3rd or 4th vehicle.
I saved SO much money by having only 1 kid. I don’t know how you all do it
It’s a conundrum.. needing that 3rd row SUCKS
The child-free savings are even better, I gotta say.
You eat the second one. It gets easier after that…
Holy shit! With such a piss-poor take in the hed, I had to double-check to make sure I wasn’t at the old site.
Remember, the funding here comes from a large franchise. Not saying they are influencing anything directly but always have to be careful of the hand that feeds, especially when they need people to buy product at these prices to pay for everything.
The price/range metric doesn’t work for me. It’s a shame because it’s cool, but VW missed the boat on price/range by two years.
91kwh battery pack. Battery chemistry hasn’t changed in two years. 2.34 miles per kwh efficiency puts it right in the middle between the id4 crossover and the silverado ev.. The aerodynamics is that of a brick and as you add bigger and bigger batteries to increase range you get diminishing returns because of the increased mass.
That’s why this should be a plug-in hybrid.
That efficiency is on par with an AWD Cybertruck. Hopefully, VW can invest in more efficient motors or software tweaks to improve the range. I’ll also wait until these models get into some reviewers’ hands to see what they think.
dc motors are super efficient. this thing is a brick and has no aero to help iy cut through the air. also the cabin is massive you are going to lose a lot of range in the real world running the climate control
Once rich boomers on a nostalgia kick buy up the first round of these, sales will fall off a cliff.
I would love an electric minivan to replace my Odyssey, but 234 mile range doesn’t work for my road trip car. Plus most of my trips are up the Sierras, so that’s more like a 150 mile range for how I would use it
I hope they sell enough to keep making them because I’m not in the market right now and am pretty sure that a few years of technological improvements and cost reductions will shift it to a much sweeter spot.
I keep chuckling that this thing is $65K. The irony of it being a Volkswagen…
HUGE miss on the mileage and the pricing. everything else about this car is awesome and I was seriously considering replacing one of my siennas with one of these.
as it stands, though, thats a solid hell no
Just like STDs, these things will be all over The Villages.
I can’t wait for “This Volkswagen ID Van Depreciated An Unbelievable $500 Per Day, $45 Per Mile Driven” in a year or two.
Vanagon owner here. I do like the looks of this and I’m sure it has way more than the 90 hp my van supposedly had when it was new. But the range and price make it a non-starter.
Anytime the price of a VW is announced: “ThIS ISn’T pRiCEd liKe tHE BeATLe WAs hOW CaN tHEy Be CaLLEd thE PeOPle’S CaR?!?!”