Volkswagen seduced people in the United States with the sleek ID. Buzz that promised to revive the appeal of the legendary Type 2 Bus of the 1950s. Having an electric minivan with great DNA to support life off the grid has always been a dream for many. However, when Volkswagen revealed the price and final details, everyone was disappointed, indicating another failure for Volkswagen in the electric vehicle arena.
If you followed Electric vehicle news, you already know that Volkswagen is not doing very well despite announcing an ambitious program to overtake Tesla. Unlike the EV startup, which is flooding the market with very interesting EVs in key segments, Volkswagen has scaled back its EV plans. After Herbert Diess was ousted in 2022, the new management decided that EVs were a waste of money and put previous plans on hold or scrapped them altogether.
Volkswagen’s cutting-edge SSP architecture was scheduled for a 2026 launch to replace the MEB platform, which debuted in 2019 with the ID.3. However, new management has pushed it back to at least 2029, leaving Volkswagen with an outdated EV platform that has very few strengths. The MEB architecture may have been a good stepping stone during the early days of electrification. However, it cannot compete with more advanced architectures (Hyundai’s E-GMP is a prime example) that dominate the EV market today.
However, the Volkswagen Group is stubbornly developing new vehicles using the MEB architecture across its many brands. Regardless of name or appearance, they are basically just redesigned ID.4s. That means they share the same problems that have bothered Volkswagen customers from the beginning. These include poor software, mediocre performance, modest charging speeds, and, in most cases, exorbitant prices for what they offer.
Photo: Volkswagen
That didn't change with the launch of the ID. Buzz, not that anyone expected it. However, people looked fondly at Volkswagen's electric minivan, remembering the good times they had with the Type 2 Bus in the 1950s and its successors up to the Vanagon. What everyone expected was an electric Bus that would remind them of Volkswagen's heyday. Instead, the ID. Buzz reminded everyone of the company's failure to conquer the US market in the years that followed.
Starting at $60,000 in the U.S., the Volkswagen ID. Buzz isn’t exactly an affordable vehicle. After looking at European prices, however, no one expected it to be cheap. With its retro styling and spacious three-row cabin, the ID. Buzz was expected to make Americans happily open their wallets. Instead, everyone is now wondering what they’ll get for their money, and the truth is, not much. That is, if you don’t count the painful memory of its great-grandfather.
The Volkswagen ID. Buzz may have a cute front end and a roomy cabin, but it’s hard to price it above $60,000 when you look at its specs. A bold price tag like that creates certain expectations, which, sadly, the ID. Buzz fails to meet. Its range, which hovers around 230 miles regardless of configuration, is more worthy of a Nissan Leaf than a family adventure vehicle. With the ID. Buzz, the real adventure is more likely to be getting to the next charger than exploring the unknown.
Add to that the influence of cold weather and higher fuel consumption when driving on the highway, and you'd be lucky to get 200 miles on a charge. This makes me wonder what good a vehicle like this is if road travel isn't its forte. As a people mover, there are more established EVs in this price segment, with the recently launched Kia EV9 being the leading contender.
Photo: Volkswagen
The disappointing range is not the result of Volkswagen saving battery capacity. The Germans have gone all out and installed a 91-kWh battery pack between the wheels of the ID. Buzz. The fact that the electric minivan completely drains it in just over 230 miles says a lot about whether or not it is efficient. It's not just the shape that counts, but also the battered MEB architecture, which is certainly not a champion of efficiency. Despite Volkswagen promising more efficient powertrains, the ID. Buzz does not seem to benefit from this improvement.
If Volkswagen had launched the ID. Buzz in 2022, as originally planned, it would have certainly set the sales charts alight. Back then, a 230-mile range wouldn’t have turned so many people’s noses up as it does today, and the price would have been more acceptable, too. Sure, it would have been a lousy road-trip vehicle, but many people would have forgiven that for the sake of having a modern, electric-powered Microbus.
In 2024, when most people who wanted an EV had already bought one, I can’t see the ID. Buzz as anything other than a niche model. And a bad one at that, inheriting all the cost-cutting mistakes Volkswagen made with its other ID vehicles. Not to mention that it came to the U.S. market at a time when all the goodwill toward the brand had run dry after years of Volkswagen annoying its customers with poorly thought-out decisions.
At a time when “the roof is on fire” As Volkswagen CEO Thomas Schaefer said a year ago, the German automaker desperately needed a win in the U.S. market. But the ID. Buzz is nothing of the sort, with low projected volumes making it more of a curiosity than a flagship model. Not that the electric minivan has been any more successful in Europe. Less than two years after its launch, sales in Germany have fallen to just 177 vehicles in a three-month sales period. I’d say there’s no more buzz about Volkswagen’s electric vehicles.