I’m not sure I’ve ever been quite as frustrated with a new car. The hopes I had for Volkswagen bringing back the old Microbus were, let’s be honest, probably unrealistic. To me, even without the considerable burden of some bleary-eyed hippy culture nonsense nostalgia I was never a part of, the original VW Microbus meant something to me. It was a unblinkingly rational design that nevertheless somehow managed to wrap around to being a charming and quirky thing, full of character and usefulness and a lot of anti-establishment cheeriness. It was one of those vehicles that always made me smile, and every trip I’ve ever taken in one, as driver or passenger, has been one I look back on fondly. So, yeah, expecting that degree of fulfillment from any new car is probably unreasonable. And yet here we are. Volkswagen has resurrected the old Bus as the ID.Buzz, and there’s so much of it I do like, and yet it misses the mark in one such crucial way that it’s heartbreaking.
I think every time I write about the ID.Buzz I need to give a little rundown of all the other times I’ve written about it, because this car has had one of the longest and most protracted launches in the history of automotive letters. I first drove the ID.Buzz, in European short-wheelbase guise, back in 2022. Then, in 2023, I got to see the US-market long wheelbase version for the first time at another big event. And then finally, last October, I got to drive the long-wheelbase ID.Buzz in yet another “launch” event. VW always throws great events, so I’m not complaining, but it is a lot of build-up over two years for the release of a car.
Actually, I think you really can think of the build-up as having gone on for about 24 years, considering that is when VW first showed a concept for an all-new reborn Microbus, back in 2001:
And now, I was given an ID.Buzz to try for a week. I knew when I got one, there was really only one thing I had to do with it, since it was the one thing I didn’t get to do with it when I drove it all those other times: take it on an actual road trip. A road trip that involved multiple hours of highway driving, and without the highly competent VW support staff and route planners that make each press trip drive such a pleasant and worry-free affair. I needed to drive this thing at highway speeds in the messiness of reality, and see how it did.
The Road Trip Test
The reason this was the test that had to be undertaken is that I needed to confirm my suspicions that I’ve had in all my other tests of the Buzz: it’s almost a great vehicle, but the decision to make it a pure battery-electric vehicle has hobbled it, severely. I suspected this may be the case not because of the vehicle’s weaknesses, but because of its strengths. It’s packaged incredibly well, and as a result, this swoopy box on wheels has a vast amount of usable space inside, with each row – even the way-back third row – having great legroom and headroom and space overall.
There’s good luggage space, even with all rows up, and with the middle row folded and the rear seat removed, there’s cavernous amounts of space in there. What I’m getting at is that this thing is born for road trips. So I took it on one!
Not a massive one, but a decent one, from my home in the middle of North Carolina to the Spanish moss-covered charm of Savannah, Georgia. It’s a about a five-hour drive, or so. Or it should be, at least. It was even a pretty undemanding road trip, as far as these things go, with just two people and minimal luggage. The Buzz is, of course, capable of much more.
The Problem
But here’s the problem: it’s an amazing road trip vehicle hobbled with, frankly, a city car’s range.
The ratings for the RWD version – the one I had – are, officially, 234 miles. But that’s a combined cycle, and isn’t real-world road trip range. In my tests, in generally cold weather that required the heater to be used, with the battery capacity upped from the default 80% to 90%, and driving at speeds that ranged between 65 to 75 mph, because that’s what highway speeds are, if not a bit more, I found I really was only getting between 170 and 190 miles of range, often less, because the nav system is going to route you to chargers long before you get to the sphincter-pinholing range of like 10 remaining miles.
So, what this means, realistically, is that you’re stopping to charge every, oh, 160 miles or so? Sometimes 150? Two hours, give or take. That’s just not enough. And when you do stop to charge, it’s in no way as easy or quick as just filling up with gas.
This isn’t the fault of the ID.Buzz, of course, but the ID.Buzz is still hampered by the reality of the charging network in America. And in the context I’m talking about, home charging isn’t the panacea it’s made out to be by diehard EV enthusiasts. Sure, for day-to-day commuting, if you have a decent level 2 charger at home, the rich and profound shittiness of the charging infrastructure doesn’t matter so much.
But on a road trip? It’s a completely different story. Then the charging infrastructure matters a lot.
On a road trip, you need to find the fastest possible chargers, because the slow ones are slow, like you’re stuck there overnight slow. After I got back from the trip I tried to find a local charger by me, and ended up with a charger that was putting in 15 miles of range an hour, so, if I was coming in at like 20%, I’d need a good 8 or more hours to get a decently full charge.
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But there are fast chargers out there, including some baffling ones like these that were, for some reason, Mercedes-Benz branded:
I didn’t see any Benzes around, and otherwise it was a normal ChargePoint charger, but whatever. Most of the time I found myself charging for about a half hour or so behind a Walmart, almost always behind a stack of shipping containers. It’s not great, let’s be honest here. And it’s not cheap! The average amount I paid for charging the Buzz was $40 to $45 dollars, and I had to charge at least twice, there and back, with I believe at least one charge in between. It was more expensive than if I had bought gas for a combustion car.
Charging kinda sucks. There’s so many benefits to EVs, sure, but the charging experience sure isn’t one of them. I mean, sometimes you get to a charger, and the piece of shit has crashed, like your crappy work PC:
I suppose if I had the Tesla Supercharger adapter that’s supposed to be available for these soon, it could be a bit better, but it’s still nowhere near as easy and effortless as refilling with gasoline, and that’s the standard that needs to be met, fair or not.
Why I’m So Frustrated
So, what’s the flapjacking point of the ID.Buzz, then? The platform makes a ton of sense as a local delivery vehicle in its cargo form, no question. It’s fantastic at that. But the ID.Buzz, as it is, is both physically and spiritually meant to be a roadtrip machine. Something that turns energy into freedom! Freedom to go wherever, with whomever, and whatever crap you want to take with you!
And, don’t forget, this thing costs about $60,000, too. It’s not cheap!
And it’s great at it – in the one I had, the interior was one of the darker motifs, which I don’t like as much as the lighter ones with the brighter, more fun colors, but it’s roomy and comfortable as hell and the multi-zone climate control works fantastic and the audio system sounds incredible, and it’s the sort of space where you and up to seven of the people you love most can have a fantastic time, for hours at a time!
Except, of course, a good chunk of those hours will likely be spent immobile, behind a fucking Walmart.
The ID.Buzz has so many good things going for it! It drives great! I’m not kidding, the acceleration is terrific – unfathomable, if you’re thinking of the original VW Bus, like I was – and the highway driving is smooth, all that battery weight so low means the roadholding is great and the handling, for such a tall box, is surprisingly good. The brakes are terrific, which I can attest to because the front of the bus is not spattered with venison, which it would have been had the brakes been worse when that deer ran in front of me.
It looks great, too. Sure, that two-tone paint is doing a lot of heavy lifting, but who gives a shit? Let it lift! It’s working. It doesn’t look like everything else on the road, people turn and watch you go by and smile, and it’s still technically a minivan! A cool minivan! VW pulled off a hell of a feat by just achieving that!
It’s fast, roomy, useful, cool-looking, comfortable, it’s everything! Except you can’t fucking use it. Oh, sure, it’s totally fine for in-town driving and all that, but who cares? Again, this is a road trip machine. It’s almost perfect at that, except it can’t really actually do it.
Ugh, it makes me so frustrated. It’s like if scientists managed to clone Leonardo DaVinci, and he looks and sounds just like the real DaVinci and then they add, oh yeah, one thing though, he can’t actually paint or draw. But other than that, look, DaVinci!
There’s A Way To Fix This
What’s even more frustrating is the fact that this could be a solvable problem. If the ID.Buzz was a hybrid or had a range extender, it would change everything. A Buzz with a range extender – perhaps like what VW will be putting in the new Scout – would transform this into an absolutely fantastic machine.
And it could be possible! I mean, just look:
The battery pack could be reduced in size a bit, a combustion engine could be placed in the freed-up volume, maybe an inline engine turned flat or perhaps a flat horizontally-opposed engine, the fuel tank could go up front – why is this looking familar?
Oh, right.
Still, you get the idea. A range-extended ID.Buzz should be possible, especially now that VW has committed to making range-extended EVs with the Scout. A range-extended Buzz means that it could be a fantastic all-EV day-to-day car, and then when road trip time comes, it can drive and cruise with the gleeful abandon of anyone with a gasoline-fueled car.
But that’s not what we have. Thanks in part to the lingering stigmas of Dieselgate, the ID.Buzz is a wonderful vehicle hamstrung by situations and politics and events and circumstances beyond its control. To make it a range-extended EV/hybrid would solve all these issues. But, as it stands at the moment, the ID.Buzz leaves me feeling sad.
Sad about not just what could have been, but what almost is. VW needs to look critically at the Buzz and finish the job, the right way. They have all the pieces, they just need to put them together. They’re so close, and want this to work. I really do.
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It’s DOA. Or at least it will be once every influencer manages to trade their Cybertruck in for it and then dumps it after shooting enough video for everyone to get their fill, so about 6 months.
Problem 1: Way overpriced for the range it has. It either needs to be $40k as is or have at least 300 miles range. One or the other. Tesla manages to at least advertise 300 miles for under $50k on the Model Y, it may get less but so will the VW. 300 is the standard now, like it or not. For a roadtripper 400 (rated) is more like it. If you don’t have seven people the Tesla is fine, otherwise the Kia EV9 is probably the better pick if a buyer doesn’t have either money to burn or time to waste standing around charging more often than they need stop to take a piss anyway.
Problem 2: VW made a point of somehow making their own charging system be considered garbage even though they were effectively the #2 volume entrant. That’s not going to help sell their same brand cars. I’m not really sure what their goal is here, but selling cars doesn’t seem to be front of mind.
Adding a range extender isn’t going to solve it, it’ll just add another $10k to the price and then be subject to VW reliability or at least the general perception that people have of VW reliability. Sorry, it’s a VW, the whole point is to be a Wagen for the Volk. The Volk in Amerika at least doesn’t have $65-75k+ once taxes and fees are considered to blow unless it’s a pickup truck.
I agree with you, and I feel that Problem #1 is *the* problem by a LOT. Selling a $75,000 EV VW van with less than 275 mile max range seems like an idea that somebody should have objected to…. the price point is crazy. This van will sell tens and tens of units, I’d imagine.
That first paragraph says exactly what I have been thinking. Good job with words.
I love these articles by Jason – coming from a former VW dude (I wouldn’t call it “Stan” because I give VW hate too) they need the criticism. The fact that they dangled the replacement to the bus for the better part of a quarter century and still fucked it up is so VW of them. The first version shown in concept was the best. It would have mopped the fucking floor in sales too. Would have gone a long way to giving VW some goodwill back if they released one of these after dieselgate with a normal or hybrid engine, but nope – screwed everything up with another sub-par EV.
So it doesn’t road trip well. As a long-time road-tripper, that sucks, but it’s not the only problem. That price is probably a bigger problem. A Chrysler Pacifica starts at $40K, $51K for the PHEV. I would bet that its form road trips as well as the VW. Roomy, good ride, comfortable, quiet. But the VW starts out 20% more expensive than the PHEV version of the Pacifica. I think I’ve read here that PHEV tends to be more expensive than EV because of the complexity, etc. If this is true, I fail to see any compelling case for the VW.
OK, maybe there’s one compelling case for the VW. My mother in law had a microbus when she was a teenager and she thinks these are cool based on nostalgia. Of course, when I told her the price, she said it wasn’t that cool.
Rented a PHEV Pacifica for a road trip in October. Can confirm that it was a good road trip vehicle. Wouldn’t want one personally though. But as Torch mentioned, the ID.Buzz really needs that range extender to be a success in the good ol’ US of A.
I’m not in the market for one either, but to me it would be a direct competitor to the VW and it seems like VW missed the mark on price as well as range.
I had a regular Pacifica as a rental once, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I like it, but I have no need for a van myself and am suspicious of the longer term reliability on one
We have a 2017 Pacifica with 115k miles on it, and the only other vehicle we’ve had that approached it as the perfect road trip car was – kind of ironically – the 2013 Passat TDI it indirectly replaced. The Pacifica doesn’t have the more than 600 miles of range the Passat had, but it is otherwise a roomy and comfortable ride and gets good enough mileage considering how large it is.
Nice write up. Gotta switch the gas tank/engine location. Now what is it about YOU that deer find irresistible?
Jason’s animalistic body exudes musk (not the elon kind)
I agree, I would much rather VW make a really good affordable van for the normies with a hybrid powertrain.
Counterpoint: Even with the charging stops, it’s still going to get there faster than an old bus/kombi/vanagon unless there’s a stiff tailwind. More broadly, can we celebrate charming vehicles with practical flaws that invite us to live a little better? This sounds like a good place hook up the charger, to pull out some snacks and take a break from the tailgating, red-light running, honking-at-cars-yielding-to-pedestrians speed-at-all-cost throngs infesting the American roadways. Looking at it that way, the *real* fatal flaw is that the front seats don’t spin around Westphalia style so you can face each other and hang out. (That said, the range extender plus smaller battery seems like a winning formula in general.)
If it were competing with the old VW microbuses, you’d have a point. Unfortunately, it’s competing (in my mind) with the Sienna, Pacifica, and Odyssey and it comes in 4th place (for me).
Yes, definitely if you want a practical van this is not it and I suspect everyone’s right and these won’t sell. However, if you want something that’s a bit form over function, head over heart, vibes over vocation, then this might be it (although the price is tough to stomach no matter what). Like, a Mini Cooper is not competitive with a Camry or an Accord, but that’s sort of missing the point. As you point out the Sienna, Pacifica, and Odyssey are all great, I’d rather live in a car world where there’s options trying to be completely different vs. trying to be the same thing but 5% better.
I’ll give you that it is a charming departure from the grayscale universe we seem to live in. I tend to be practical to a fault.
Me too! You’ll notice I want to celebrate this, not buy it. That said, I try to surround myself with folks who pull me out of my grayscale universe (and their cars), I could see my wife lobbying to buy one of these used in a few years, the Mini vs Accord comparison I made above is a long-running marital dispute….
There is often a market for “cool” cars that don’t have much else going for them. But not when you start from “minivan”. If you start from “minivan” you better damn well have practicality going for you too, because you’ve got a lot of ground to make up before you even reach the starting line of “cool”.
You want to hook up the charger, pull out snacks, and take a break behind some cargo containers behind a WalMart? For… checks notes.. $60k?! Bc that’s what this thing can do. Pass for me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It’s almost like a PHEVs are the best option over pure EVs….
And speaking of price points, the fact that a PHEV would require about 1/4 of the battery, I think they could undercut $60k pretty easily. Or at least on par. And it would sell like mad.
Even a standard, non-PHEV hybrid version. At the moment, only the Sienna does that. And if I’m gambling on a van’s reliability, I actually feel better about a Pacifica than a VW.
An EREV version would be pretty neat! Still not at the price this is selling for imo but it’s a start.
Finally got to check out one of these at the Auto show, and while the first 2 rows seemed to be ok and it does look really nice in person, the 3rd row has to be one of the most uncomfortable car seats I have ever sat in. Without wanting to futz around for 15 minutes with a crowd around the van, my idiot behind couldn’t figure out how to recline the seat (that part was my fault but still the seat is way too firm and offers as much support as a park bench). Looking at YouTube video now though, it seems a bit unintuitive since I was feeling around for the usual lever or knob that wasn’t there.
My guess here is that VW’s MEB platform is designed to share little, if anything, with whatever they’re calling the Scout platform. So the Scout having something doesn’t have any impact on said thing’s feasibility in an MEB vehicle. I’m willing to bet this is the best they can do with the Buzz, aside from maybe some range-optimization as a later update. But this thing is almost-definitely set in stone as a pure EV. Par for the course for modern VW.
It seems far more likely, relatively speaking, that we’d get a van-type-thing on the Scout platform than see an MEB model re-engineered to involve a gas engine, though I doubt either is economically feasible, especially given VW’s financial state. Not to mention cannibalization of the Buzz. But I’d love to be wrong.
Sad, VW really needs a win! I have owned all kinds of old cars and I never get the waves and gas pump conversations that I do when I’m in my old Type 2 westy.
Is it too early to rename it the struggle bus?
Would you settle for Struggle Buzz?
For the win!!
Just like VW’s Electrify America charging network completely screwed up charging for anyone that was not driving a Tesla, it appears their EVs are attempting to make sure anyone who buys one regrets it. How could the largest car manufacturer in the world make 2 huge mistakes in a row? Look at Hyundai, Tesla, or GM next time for a little help how to make a viable EV.
It’s not for road trips- at least not until 2045 or 2050, when the charging infrastructure catches up.
It’s for hipster parents to cart around kids named Silver or Turning Leaf or Otto (whoops, sorry Torch). This is a car that never leaves Santa Clara County.
Something tells me that putting a fuel tank in the forward crumple zone is not a great idea….
….something something Pinto something Panther something something Saddle Tanks.
And while the range is inconceivably short – it’s not VW’s fault that the third-world state of South Carolina decides to install plugs behind big box MAGA dimestores.
(It really is a craptastic state with just one decent road running from the capital to the shore)
I just watched you in the Beetle documentary on Tubi – Did you also see the VW Bus documentary on that streaming platform?
Seems to me the biggest issue with this is the same thing that has afflicted many recent Transporters, VWs and cars in general: It’s too large, too complex, too fast, too heavy and too expensive. Shave just 500 lbs in weight, starting with the oversized wheels, excess sound deadening, complex interior door panels, chunky/weighty seats, split-level load bays, mondo-speaker sound systems, etc – bring it closer to the minimalist interiors of the old Sambas, get accustomed to slower travel speeds & wearing a sweater inside the car – and you’d get closer to the range and efficiency you need from an EV peoplemover at a more reasonable price.
Do all of that and then absolutely no one will buy it.
I’m not so sure many people will but it like this, either.
Yeah, not many will buy it now. Zero will buy it like that.
> on Tubi
So you’re their viewer
This needs the Scout EREV drivetrain for the US market
Dunno, the use case seems pretty clear to me. It’s a Fiat 500e for folks with kids, nothing wrong with a little style over substance.
ah yes, cornering the coveted subset of a very low-volume seller’s market!
Lol, at least it’s an EV… The winning combination of low volume AND low margins!
But think of the high resale value after you get tired or stranded by it. lol
Problem is the 500e was being sold (or leased anyway) just last month for $0 a month for its lease term, I’m thinking that’s not the space VW is anticipating playing in.
Now I have to wonder if it would be possible to Taycan swap an ID.Buzz, I’m talking batteries, motors, and transmission.
In fact, forget the ID.buzz! *Bender-strut away*
That is actually quite fair, IMO. If the new thing doesn’t work as well as the existing thing, the new thing is not all that appealing.
I can take a few (<10) minutes and add 400 miles of range to my vehicle at a fuel station, and that range is not affected by running the heater (and affected only slightly by going fast, having a headwind, etc.).
Unless some entity offers a battery swap type of arrangement, electric cars will not be able to match ICE in this respect. I guess the question then becomes ‘how much of a gap is acceptable?’ – YMMV
Only for some use cases. Up until a couple months ago the nearest gas station to my commute required a 10+ minute detour on a ~20 minute commute. To an office that offers free charging. The gulf between the new and old depends dramatically on the situation.
We (Jason’s article, my comment) are discussing road trips here, not your commute 🙂
Fair enough.
Correcto! EV’s are a heavily compromised product that just truly, clearly aren’t ready for mainstream… There are more niche cases where they work brilliantly, but it’s still considering something with very apparent flaws. With the right set up and the right used price and use-case, it can be great, but there’s no real getting around that it is still too hobbled to truly compete with the way ICE cars just work
Gas vehicles are very much still bound by the laws of physics and aerodynamics
They DO get worse gas mileage the faster you go, and the worse the vehicle aero efficiency the worse it gets.
But that doesn’t really matter very much.
Gasoline has 34 kWh per gallon. You can add 500+ kWh to your vehicle in 5 minutes at every interstate exit in America.
The largest EV batteries in any car or truck are less than half that size, and take 4-5 times longer to refill even in the absolute best case (10x longer more typically).
Small differences in efficiency because of temperature, speed, or accessory use simply matter much more when an EV can only carry the equivalent of a few gallons of gas on board and is filled with the equivalent of an eyedropper.
I don’t have the technical chops to make this argument but how much of that 34kW potential in gasoline is actually transformed into motion? Compared to the electrical potential in a battery?
Ca 25-40%, depending on engine and manufacturer
The efficiency of EVs is quite a bit higher. So say a gas car that gets 20 MPG can go 20 miles on that 34 kWh, or 0.59 miles/kWh. The h is important. kW is a power measurement. kWh is energy. Compare that to 2-3 miles/kWh for EVs.
The difference is that gasoline has so much more energy per volume or mass than batteries. A Tesla Model 3 only carries the equivalent of about 3 gallons of gas. Because gas lets you carry so much energy, ICE cars can get away with being much less efficient while still delivering acceptable range.
Again, that is a technically valid point that is overwhelmed by the real world limitations of batteries and charging.
Suppose an EV is 90% efficient compared to 30% for an ICE. The fastest superchargers to my knowledge charge at 350 kW. A gas pump can fill 10 gallons per minute, which is 20000 kW, or 60 times as much energy transferred in the same time. Even a 3X difference in efficiency on the road is going to be a rounding error by comparison.
I guess you missed the part where I said “(and affected only slightly by going fast, having a headwind, etc.).”
It’s not slightly
Try doing a road trip going 80 in a wrangler
The fuel economy gets so bad it’s actually faster to drive slower after factoring in extra fuel stops, not to mention the cost
The good news is you’ll likely break down half way and finish the trip in a rented Pacifica.
What about the tailights ?
I am going to guess there will be another deep-dive article about them. That way he gets paid twice.
Make it a phev and $10K cheaper and I’m in.
So far… VW has really screwed this up.
I would say the other flaw is the price of these damn things
So, Torch is saying that a roadtrip in the new Buzz turned out to be a major buzzkill…
Any road-trip thru South Carolina is a buzzkill…
….unless you stop at one of the many gas station/liquor store/bars along the way.
Ah man, that’s a good, brutally honest review of it. If this thing is really reworked to be what it should be, I would probably put this near the top of “family car” when I need to really consider that. The design, the colors, they have that sense of VW fun that was captured so perfectly when the New Beetle came out. Was it the best vehicle? Nah, but who cares, it was plenty competent enough and did it all with a smile while making everyone involved also smile! It feels like this has that same formula, except for the part where it, ya know, works.
I’d looked at different TVs as commuters for my wife, but ultimately got a used Model 3 because, unlike the other cars in consideration with the reality of where we live – we can just use the car like a car. Sure, maybe there’s a little extra planning step on figuring out our route, but between the home charger we installed and the Tesla network, I can basically do any trip I’d want. Had we gone with another EV dependent on the awful 3rd party options, we’d basically have a car she can drive to work, charge at home, and then never use again. I’d love to have the ID.Buzz as a family car, but there just isn’t a way I could justify that horrid compromise
Your wife commutes in a TV? Is that like a transporter from Star Trek?
Curse Dieselgate for preventing me from buying one of these bad boys with a TDI…or a Golf Alltrack TDI.
The gasoline Alltrack/SportWagen is perfectly cromluent, fwiw. Mine has served me well for five years.
I think, fundamentally, much like the Smart ForTwo and also the Fiat 500e, the ID Buzz isn’t really meant for us. Sure, Volkswagen will be happy selling as many here as they can, but it’s primarily designed for European needs and specialized for that market without much other consideration. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, Ford certainly didn’t consider the needs of farmers in Cornwall when they designed the latest F-Series SuperDuty, but it’s just now it is
I think I disagree; the Buzz always had the US as a main market. Old bus nostalgia is WAY bigger here than in Europe.
For the split window T1, yes, but the Buzz seems to take more inspiration from the T2 and T3
As such the Buzz will likely have the same fate as both the Smart and 500, they will undersell and fail in the market. Why bother to sell something that you know won’t be successful? The investment in federalization/crash testing alone make this a loss does it not?
Is this just hubris on all counts, or deliberate ignorance? I’m really not sure.
“Is this just hubris on all counts, or deliberate ignorance?”
It’s Fahrvergnügen. Or just VW for short. It’s the latest entry on a long list that includes Phaeton, Touareg, V10 Diesel, Cheating on Diesel, ElectrifyAmerica, W8, Passat Window Regulators, Mk IV coil packs, most recently water in ID4 door handles that resulted in a multi-month stop sale, and on and on…and on.
The Scout’s gonna hobbled in some way as well, mark my words, probably by an EREV using a small turbocharged VW engine for a large 4×4 that tows coupled with an insufficient number of service locations and a VW dealer network that could service it but won’t want to after being shut out (shut out for good reason mind you, I’m not on the dealer’s side here either). VW lost the plot in the U.S. somewhere around 1986.