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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This is 100% true. Wifey has ID.4, which is similar to Buzz, and this article literally verbatim describes what we’ve been experiencing.
I’ve had numerous VWs and even loved a few, but the annoyances of the last road trip have me scheming a way out of this lease.
Very late as well…
Everything you said was spot on correct.
Two words: swappable batteries. Have you not forgotten this???
https://jalopnik.com/electric-cars-wont-replace-combustion-cars-until-these-1788294332
Counterpoint: While you are right about the road trip thing, this vehicle is not that vehicle. Right now, this will be sold to:
It’s going to take a while before that eureka moment happens. BUT, it won’t be long. I can see this taking over city delivery and taxis within a few years. VW did well, and it will do them well to leverage the perfect EV delivery vehicle.
Road trips are nice, but it won’t happen until you remember your roots on EV, TORCH. 😛
I’m late to the discussion so all of this has already been said but I respectfully disagree that the correct thing was to give it a range extender.
IMO, the correct thing was to never sell an EV with less than 300 miles range. That’s just completely stupid!
What exactly did they think the range was going to be when it was, oh, loaded with 5-7 passengers plus bags/equipment? I bet it lops 50-100 miles off what Jason got in his testing.
If you want a range extender, start with an EV that has 300 miles range, then add a small range extender. But this thing should be a viable EV first. Then upcharge for either a range extender or a max pack battery.
If the Silverado EV can get more range than this even at it’s low end pricing (which overlaps with this van) and is tons larger/heavier, then this should’ve been designed for 300 miles range minimum, especially at the price it’s being offered at.
What will happen is that it will fail miserably, VW will pull it from the US (if not everywhere) and that will be that. How they do not know this I cannot imagine.
This is a shame–it is a great vehicle as you noted, but it is destined to fail super badly and everyone knows it. Thank you for your review articulating it.
In a year or two, these will be free. Just like the FIAT 500E experience.
True, and also not worth it, sadly. Except maybe for short city drives with lots of stuff.
How about a range extender in a rooftop cargo box? Single package engine and fuel tank (basically a streamlined portable generator), and a plug interface on the roof somewhere (or a mountable cable tray to the existing charging plug for aftermarket).
Leave it off for daily driving, slap it on the roof rack for road trips. Keep all the cargo space where its convenient and protected from the elements. Since its a separate item (even aftermarket maybe?) you could wait to buy it once you need it, or rent it, or keep it when you replace the vehicle.
IMO, it takes what’s already marginal aerodynamics and ensures they offset a lot of the gains.
This van sucks and is 100% disappointment to me. Too small, no range and full of VW shittification. It’s gone in 3 years or less.
So here is what I find kind of funny. The 1960’s/70’s transporter has a 60L/15.85 gallon tank. Hard to get fuel economy figures but let’s say around 16mpg. It would have a range of 253.6 miles. That is within spitting distance of the claimed 234 miles of range the EV has. I guess what I’m trying to say is maybe the old T2 was not the road tripping wonder they are made out to be in terms of range.
But you could fill it up anywhere in like 5 minutes. That’s the key; the range would be fine if the charging network was as robust as the gasoline network, and as quick.
Nostalgia never has a deadline, life does unfortunately.
To some degree you could also blame the charging network on VW. The outcome of the dieselgate lawsuit was that VW had to install charging stations through their company Electrify America. Tesla has created a far more robust charging network (less down time, faster chargers, convenient locations) than VW without being required by law. VW shot themselves in the foot by half assing the charging network.
I just picked up a 2024 ID4 S on Monday. It’s got a stated range limit of 206 miles, more than enough for day to day and smaller day trips. But I have no intention of taking it on road trips, especially since I can’t use the Super Charger network (yet). My Pentastar powered Grand Cherokee will remain the default road trip vehicle for the foreseeable future.
But, man this thing is slick! I’m very happy with it so far. Has a very premium feel to it. The Dealer had an IDBuzz on their lot while I was there. It’s a fun looking machine, not for me though.
For any vehicle you plan to drive outside of your locality, ICE or hybrid are the best for now. EVs to me are only practical for in-town driving or commuting to work. I don’t have garage space for a commute-only vehicle. And hopefully home charging is cheaper than public chargers.
But the other advantages were also debunked in this article. The range sucks and the cost was more than filling up with gas. Yikes. And all for $60k! What a deal!
Some quick comments:
Man! We’ve had “real” electric cars worth actually having for 12 years now, and VW still can’t get it right?
Shouldn’t be so hard to just give it the range of a Model 3 “long” range and a charger adaptor to use the chargers for those ones (which I kind of hate because of that hysterical CEO guy, so I’m not gonna write the name).
I’ll just take my old diesel Eurovan then: It has a range of 700 miles on road trips, has more space, and in a couple of years there will also be people who think T4s are cool and retro, like it has happened to all the other ones since 1950.
https://www.instagram.com/p/C6yF97oie0t/
I have little confidence that the folks building these charge networks know what they are doing if they are using Microsoft Windows. Yikes.
Spot on! I’m hoping that EVs will bring back the station wagon. SUVs and vans are just not going to be good EVs given today’s technology. The aero drag is just too high (especially at highway speeds), but low, sleek wagons should do so much better. I really hope that consumers start realizing this and move away from the current big-ass, tall-ass car requirements. I know this is a lot to ask.
I think it depends on van usage. EV’s for local construction vans are perfect. They don’t need the range and they go home to the company charging station at the end of the shift.
I wonder if you could get one of those small $400 generators and strap it on the roof. Plug the van in and have it charge while you are driving.
Or if it would have to be one of those big green Sunbelt rentals generators. You know the big one used for powering jobsites that you tow behind a pickup truck. That would defintely keep the battery topped up while driving, all you gotta do is stop for gas to power the generator. Or if you cant charge while driving, one of those huge generators has a several 220 volt plugs on it that would charge that van in no time flat lol.
My economy EV was pulling 22,000 watts this morn at 40 mph with three adults on board climbing a minor grade. Also 3000 watts were going to the heater. No, a portable generator will not do much for you.
EVs are great and we really love ours. We run it all over the state and have saved a lot of money on gas (1/4 or 1/5 the cost of our V6 SUV fuel b/c we charge at home).
We will also continue to road trip with our SUV for the foreseeable future. I can easily drive 200-300 miles in any direction in our EV regardless of the weather but that needs to be followed by a charge stop which isn’t fast in our particular EV. That’s okay as long as a person isn’t blindly buying EVs without understanding how they work.
We’ve put 15000 miles on this EV in 8 months w/o a problem going back and forth across our state through a charger desert. Mostly L2 charging or short DCFC sessions to put ~50 miles in the battery to get home. Cheaper than a whole DCFC charge by far.
You can’t take it out of park while it’s charging
https://nypost.com/2025/01/15/us-news/volkswagen-van-survives-deadly-los-angeles-palisades-fire-in-malibu/ old vw van, 2 (one point for torch’s point above about the road tripping, another for this) id.buzz, 0
Our Walmart chargers are out front and usually ICED, so having them in the back is logical. As range is always the first question asked of me as a long time EV driver, maybe it’s not part of consumer review panel discussions in Europe, wher 150 miles here just gets me to our state capital but there puts you in another country. I just don’t think there are enough Asian designers or bean counters in Europe.
And a fuel tank behind the front bumper? Excuse me?
The can call it the VW otnip.
That’s to properly ignite the battery pack.
“A range-extended ID.Buzz should be possible”
I nominate sourcing a BMW flat twin boxer as the ICE. A flat twin should bring some Buzz.
Oh, and naming it “VMW”.
So this is the problem with Electric Vehicles and the articles. They are all the same. I want electric vehicles to succeed but the articles go “hey look how cool this is but guess what there’s a range issue” I am slightly happy that the word game changer wasn’t used. Interesting idea about a flat four pony motor but im not sure the NHSTA would like a fuel tank up front.
The range extender should be up front. Since it doesn’t need to be mechanically connected to anything, it can be mounted on a “drawer” that slides out of the front of the van for service.
It shouldn’t need to be serviced in this day and age.
An engine doesn’t need service? LOL, no.
interior was one of the darker motifs, which I don’t like as much as the lighter ones with the brighter, more fun colors
All you need is some LED UV lighting and some fluorescent paint. As a bonus that paint will also mask the more questionable glowing sploches and smears.
*Alleged glowing splotches and smears.
Whose to say, really?
it’s a glowing spot. Of course it’s company policy never to, imply ownership in the event of a glowing spot… always use the indefinite article a glowing spot, never your glowing spot.
They need to find a way to introduce an “extended range” version real fast, unless their plan all along was for this vehicle to fail for some reason.
If it even had 280 estimated miles at 100% charge, I could live with it. I know – I drive a Hondified Blazer (Prologue.) And, I’m not interested in an EREV right now, but agree that for some folks it’s what will give them the confidence to consider it.
I think the real-world range is far too low for this vehicle, but I would like to read this article rewritten after Tesla’s chargers work for VWs. The rich and profound shittiness would have to be a bit less…rich and profound.
How many deer have thrown themselves in front of your vehicles at this point? I am starting to suspect that Torch is under some kind of curse. His boy really should pull the prank where he tapes a picture of a deer over the backup camera.
This is why I refuse to consider an EV. Fix the road trip problem, and I might think about one.
100% It was the deciding factor for me too. Opted for the S60 Recharge instead of the Polestar2.
Same. I’m not adding hours to my trip for a car to charge.
It shoulda been a gasser in 2004 and refined from there. But instead the world got a Veyron. Yay….I guess.
Don’t get me wrong, Veyron’s are cool, but kind of useless and silly coming from a company named Volkswagen. :shrug:
Now VW sits there wondering why they can’t sell cars to normal people, well, they stopped worrying about the Volks in Volkswagen a LONG time ago.
And their stationwagens are all but extinct here too!
The death of wagons will forever stump me. It helps when I view their death as actually the proliferation of peoples fragile ego where purchases and consumption that make you feel better while doing nothing better, trump frugal and logical choices.
I’ve long wanted a Flex but my wife has a serious station wagon phobia from childhood
Wagons didn’t die, they’re just 8″ closer to heaven.
THe Veyron isn’t that cool and it isn’t aging very well from a design POV. I totally agree about the ‘volks’ in Volkswagen, The coolness factor was alway Not Over the Top German engineering, but German engineering on the cheap. Plus the designs were iconic, not ironic. (Vw’s I have had: Karmann Ghia convertible, Transporter in Europe as a hippie, Bug, Squareback, Fast Back, another bug, Westfalia Vanagon, Mark 1 GTI, first generation Jetta sedan, Cabriolet bought new in 90, 86 Cabriolet Long Term project, and I am scoping out a European Weekender as I type.) Then Peich, and over engineered garbage with plastic parts, expensive as ‘real’ cars and mostly ugly. VW has completely lost their way.
Yep, totally the Veyron’s fault, and not the disappointing sales of the EuroVan. VW could’ve sold another Transporter passenger van in the US at any time, but they never did because they knew they wouldn’t sell enough of them to cover the costs of federalizing, advertising, and servicing. Even when they did try another van with the badge swap special called the Routan, sales were still poor.
I mean, they used resources to build a Veyron, so yeah, it did impact it in some form. VW had tons of pet projects at that time. It could be blamed on the Veyron, the W12, the Phaeton. Any number of them. The point still stands, they stopped making vehicles that put the Volks in Volkswagen and now wonder what went wrong. And the whole emissions cheating thing…
Yes, let’s give credit to VW for the….Routan? They took a shitty van and made it cost more. What a recipe for success.