- The Volkswagen ID.Buzz has a most EPA-rated vary of 234 miles in the USA.
- However vary is only one a part of the equation when planning a street journey.
- The Quick Lane EV drove 500 miles within the ID.Buzz throughout a winter storm to see what it is like.
The Volkswagen ID.Buzz electrical minivan is one cool EV. It appears to be like implausible, which isn’t one thing you may often say about minivans, however VW has managed to mix sufficient nostalgia and new stuff into the ID.Buzz’s design that it simply works.
Nonetheless, because the U.S. specs of the reimagined Microbus hit the interwebs, lots of people can’t transfer previous one determine: 234 miles. That’s the utmost driving vary of the 2025 Volkswagen ID.Buzz, as per the EPA, and it’s an enormous ache level for many who have been trying to get VW’s electrical minivan for the aim of cross-country journey.
The unique Microbus from the Nineteen Fifties and Sixties was removed from a luxurious automobile, but it surely made a reputation for itself as an ideal road-tripping machine. So, can the brand new ID.Buzz reside as much as its ancestor’s legacy? Nicely, it’s difficult.
Our buddies from The Quick Lane EV traded of their Tesla Cybertruck and obtained a brand-new Volkswagen ID.Buzz pondering they’d use it for lengthy and really lengthy street journeys. However a dodgy charging expertise, freezing temperatures and a snowstorm made the automobile’s inaugural street journey a “complete prepare wreck.”
As you may see within the video embedded under, the workforce got down to journey roughly 500 miles. They set off from a resort that supposedly had EV chargers on website, however these turned out to be Tesla Superchargers, which the ID.Buzz can’t use but. So, with 15% juice left within the battery, the primary charging cease was an Electrify America DC quick charging station, the place the ID.Buzz can cost free of charge for the primary 500 kilowatt-hours.
Nonetheless, all of the stalls have been damaged and couldn’t be fastened remotely, in line with an EA name heart employee who stated {that a} service workforce was booked to go to the location and make it operational as soon as once more.
The subsequent cease was an EVgo station 11 miles away that was fortunately on-line and dealing. After this primary profitable top-up, the motive force gave up utilizing the built-in navigation system and turned to PlugShare to plan the subsequent charging stops. The EVgo cease took 41 minutes throughout which almost 70 kWh of vitality was allotted.
The subsequent charging cease was at a Shell, which required a separate smartphone app to start out utilizing the stall as a result of there was no bank card reader on the charger. Not nice, however the workforce was capable of recharge right here.
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Virtually 100 miles later, one other charging cease was crucial, this time at an Electrify America station. This time, the stalls labored, and since the ID.Buzz has Plug&Cost, there was no want to make use of a bank card or an app as a result of the EV communicates with the community mechanically. A number of charging stops have been made throughout the journey and on the finish, 12 hours have been wanted to go 500 miles. The typical effectivity was round 2 miles/kilowatt-hour, which is barely worse than the EPA-rated 2.4 miles/kWh.
On the finish of the day, the automobile is “method cool” however the route planning is method behind what Tesla is doing with their Supercharger community and the non-Tesla charging infrastructure remains to be lackluster–though it’s quickly bettering throughout the nation. Subsequent 12 months, EVs made by Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche and Scout will achieve entry to the Tesla Supercharger community within the U.S., which ought to make street journeys a lot simpler, however a concrete timeline has not but been disclosed.
