Remember when Volkswagen said they were going to delay the return of the ID.Buzz to America until 2027? Well, they’re still going to do that! In fact, they’re going to do that so much that they’re going to take another year, so now the ID.Buzz won’t be back for sale in America until 2028. That’s according to Automotive News, who spoke with VW. There will be some changes when the ID.Buzz gets back here, but I’m not really sure they’re going to be the right changes, sadly.
I really wanted the ID.Buzz to be something cool and be successful; a world with more two-tone colorful modern VW buses roaming around everywhere, diluting the never-ending sea of grayscale SUVs would have been a positive development for humankind. But that’s not what happened.
Here’s what VW told Automotive News:
The ID Buzz, built in Germany and launched in the U.S. in November 2024, has faced multiple hurdles. It was the most expensive vehicle VW sold in the U.S., with a range of just over 200 miles, features that have limited its appeal, analysts say.
It has also been subject to high U.S. import tariffs since spring 2025, two embarrassing recalls and the elimination of the $7,500 federal tax credit toward an EV purchase.
So, yeah, I think our pals over at AN hit the nail on the head there by noting it’s the most expensive VW you can buy in America, and that the range isn’t exactly great. Both of these are absolutely counter to what a modern VW Microbus should be: the bus should be accessible to as many people as possible, families and young people without a lot of money, like the old bus was, and it’s an ideal road trip vehicle, something that a range of around 200 miles does not support.
I found this out when I tested an ID.Buzz on a road trip early last year; it was appealing in so many ways, but the range was an Achilles’ heel so prominent and un-ignorable that it may as well have been wearing Achilles’ sandals. In real-world driving, a range of 200 miles actually means something closer to 150 miles, because of finding charging stations, charge time limitations and so on, which means at best you’re able to drive for stretches of about two hours before you have to stop for a non-insignificant length of time.
And, yes, this is a vehicle that starts at $60,000. A re-born Microbus should have started at, say, $40,000 or so, which would put it on par with a Toyota Sienna or a Kia Carnival or other stylish minivans. Sure, the ID.Buzz is all electric, but should that have been the case, too? If any vehicle is crying out for an EREV, I’d say it’s the ID.Buzz.
Anyway, VW was trying to sell off all the current ID.Buzzim in America, and they’ve almost done that:
The 2025 model year sell down appears to be nearly complete. Cars.com lists just 38 new vehicles nationwide with a majority being either single-tone silver or black.
I’m not surprised the all-silver and all-black ones didn’t sell. Who wants a bus in those boring colors?
When the ID.Buzz returns it’ll have some new software, a NACS-type charging port, a camping-friendly edition, and the ability to be used to power a home or other electrical equipment with vehicle-to-load capability. Those are all great, sure, but unless that software update includes a patch to drop the price by about $20 grand, I’m not sure it’ll be what the Bus needs.
VW should have more details about the ID.Buzz’ 2028 re-launch in the coming months, and I hope VW can pull a miracle out of the back of this thing. I still believe in the idea of a modern Microbus, and it’s hard to see how much VW fumbled what should have been a fantastic halo car that injected new life into this iconic brand.
If it’s still going to take a professional mechanic more than two hours to replace the cabin air filter, I’ll pass even if it was $40K.
Whoa as an owner I had no idea about the air filter job… holy shit I wish I hadn’t googled that. Some dealer said “since there’s no timing belt and water pump job, at least give us something to bill for that takes just as long”
It is not difficult to make Americans buy into something that is obviously not good for them. These are the truths that VW must hold dear if they want to turn this dud into a resounding success.
There are many, many underprivileged people in this world. VW should start by directly blaming all of the Buzz’s shortcomings on these people.
This isn’t the same world as twenty plus years ago when this thing was announced. We are at a point in time when VW could lean into the most controversial parts of their heritage. They could ride the anti-immigrant wave to a whole new level of success in America.
This sentiment would certainly deter a large portion of the American population, but the other 60% is a whole lot of people who could unwisely buy your vehicle solely for political and ideological reasons.
I was SO intirgued when I first saw these on the floor of the Texas State Fair. I would drive the shit out of this if it were either internal combustion or at the very least a hybrid. Then there’s the price, which is, in short, damnyourefuckinhavingapiss. No thanks. You keep your golden “couldbecool.”
Just to clarify, the vehicle should be launched in the first half of 2027 as a 2028 MY vehicle… so it’s only delayed by a few months, but enough to get it to the next model year for some reason.
I would legitimately love to have one of these but the price is just laughable.
Ditto, I was really hoping to get one when they were first announced, until I discovered you can buy Porsches for less. Absolutely insane price tag.
I’m really hoping we get a reasonable used market on these in a few years. I would definitely run around town in one!
“ID.Buzzim”: I like the implication here that ID.Buzz is a Yiddish word, but also one so old as to have a Hebrew/Aramaic origin, thereby using the -im plural.
Shrink the battery to 100 miles and throw a boxer engine range extender in the back and I’ll buy one tomorrow.
My brother has one. It’s fun and you get lots of waves and thumbs up. I’d consider one if we needed something that big, but it definitely isn’t cheap.
Saw a few of these on Vancouver Island this summer. Never see any back home (New England.) I think they are really nice looking vehicles in person. Too bad they didn’t get the price/range right.
VW needs to avoid bankruptcy. Trying to reintroduce a failed product isn’t a very good way to avoid that.
We have a Buzz, Honestly the range isn’t an issue anymore. I’ve gotten old enough that I can’t drive more than 60-90 min without stopping to stretch, which usually works great for charging. By the time I’m ready to get back in the car it’s charged.
When Volkswagen had the Type 2 they, the company, were a completely different animal from the fat f*ck they became. VW missed because the can no longer taste the target.
As a Canadian I figure something from an arm of Geely will one way or another will eat its lunch before it returns to the table.
In this economy, that price would never fly, especially for the intended middle class family.
I don’t think these were targeted and middle class families. More likely VW was targeting nostalgic Boomers.
When the youngest member of your target audience was born in 1964, you probably will not sell them a lot of electric mini-buses and each year that target gets smaller as they die off. If that is the choice of audience it is not a winner.
Price it down and make it a Milf shuttle craft, that would work. Cool mom’s will keep coming as a audience for years. I like that color!
What “cool mom” wants a boomer retro mobile? It is a very dated look that screams. “I want to relive my lost youth!”
The problem is that they launched the product 20 years after they showed the concept. The concept was first shown in the middle of the boomer retro phase: Bug, T-bird, PT Cruiser, HHR …..
Good points.
I guess the big question, why they didn’t see the time predicament or respond to it?
Because they are VW and have 3x the number of brands and models as they should have.
VW is where GM was in the 90’s.
That’s literally the only people I’ve seen driving these things. All two of them.
Same. I see a couple a week but they are all driven by old people.
This was a vehicle designed in Europe, for Europe, and the American market was an afterthought. It’s available there in 2 different wheelbases and cargo and passenger versions. The only way they were going to sell this in the US is as a premium vehicle, so even the most basic version is pretty highly equipped here… there’s no way they’d be able to sell a SWB cargo trim with even less range for something like $50k.
Owning one I can say the range is great in city driving and slower highway trips can take it into the high 200 miles between charges when the weather cooperates. But 80 MPH 600-1000 mile hauls are not ideal.
Yes, the ID.Buzz and every other EV that VW makes is focused on the EU market.
However, the early new VW Bus concepts were not a Europe focused vehicle.
Designed for Europe or not, its a poor example of an EV by any measure. The fact that we are driving a Chevy Equinox which has 100 more miles of range, is itself also a large family-hauling vehicle and yet costs literally half of what the ID buzz was? Fail. MAJOR fail not only as a product but as a EV.
The Equinox seems like a great vehicle but describing it and the Buzz as both “large family-hauling” vehicles is a little out there… the Buzz has 60% more passenger volume and can comfortably seat 7 adults over 6′ tall with room to spare. If I had fewer kids I’d probably have considered something like an Equinox, but we were cross-shopping the Ioniq 9 and EV9 and the Buzz sold us on being substantially roomier than those others (which are probably better as EVs but don’t have massively better range) and we snagged one new for about $10k less than the Korean options. I’d love an efficient long-range option like the Lucid Gravity but can’t swing the price, and even if I could afford the Escalade EV I feel like I’d want all the drivers in my household to get a CDL first.
The Buzz road trips fine (done 650 mile trips about 4 times now, and managed to 2-stop it a couple times) since the charging curve is pretty solid and it’s great to drive and the kids and dog have room. I feel like range would need to be more like 400 miles before it’d be a massive quality-of-life improvement.
Just for kicks I compared that road trip (about 10.5 hours of driving time) on ABRP with the Equinox and Buzz and the total estimated travel time is estimated at 3 minutes less on the Buzz, effectively the exact same travel time. I know which vehicle I’d rather be stuck inside all day with 5 other mammals!
Guess you are one of thew precious few who bought one of these things. Still a $70,000 van that has about 100 miles less range than most other current EVs. They missed the mark so horribly on these. The interior is almost a crime. They spent decades showing this boomer dream for so long that the vehicle it was inspired by- the “New Beetle” has been out of production itself for years now. And yet the interior looks like they stuck the innards from a completely unrelated, more conventional model so why even bother?
Hope you love it. Hope VW doesn’t go bankrupt. Hope it doesn’t have the glorious VW reliability.
It’s in the shop right now for a 12V battery problem! So it feels like a real VW. But yes overall we’ve really liked the space and usability, and haven’t had any issues with the interior… it’s a van, and while it does have a lot of hard plastic it makes me think it’ll wear better than all this soft touch stuff that disintegrates. I agree not worth $70k but we paid FAR below that (a lot of people were picking them up for under $50k late last year… pretty sweet ride at that price). At the current price point it’s too spendy and too niche, and I seriously hope VW survives this period of mismanagement to keep making weird shit.
Well- it will probably be a collector’s item someday. Sort of like our 2001 Prius, which was not only incredibly ugly and weird looking ( this was the first gen prior to the lemon wedge design ) and yet we drove it for years. Still see a few on occasion. I just wish VW had been more thoughtful about the release of this. They waited too long and everyone was tired of it when it finally did arrive. I mean… I am pushing 50 now and yet I distinctly recall seeing a early concept of that can back when I still lived at home, my senior year of high school. I’ve never seen a concept that took literal decades to get out the door. Had they actually released it then it would have been a massive hit since not only were the 60’s the same in regards to younger people being all over it like today’s youth are for the 90’s but the whole retro look was just getting started. They literally released this almost an entire generation too late.
I get a feeling large family hauler EVs are either soon to be or will be here in larger numbers because its becoming impractical to drive with $7 a gal gas.
and don’t forget they need to fix the face back to the friendly, from the scourge of rear view mirror I AM NOT YOUR FRIEND face. Of course the price/range equation is beyond ridiculous as VW thought all us boomers would open up our nostalgia wallets for a memory instead of an outstanding product. That this took 15+ years adds to the salt in the wound. At least with Musk when he says next year we know he means a decade or more away, but VW? What the absolute F. I will wait for the Hyundai Kia alternative which will probably be here in 2027.
I was so terribly disappointed how much of the prototype’s throwback looks were lost in the production model.
I’m not a VW fan, and never really paid much attention to the design of the Buzz. Saw one on the road for the first time last year and was very surprised at the angry face, seemed like the exact opposite of what they should have done.
Another car or EV that should’ve been cheap. This should’ve been like a three row Scion xB follow-up more than a Chrysler Pacifica that can’t go anywhere.
It also needs to f’ing have round headlights
There is one listed in the Waterville Maine dealer inventory still. $62K after “discounts”. You can buy a used one with less then 10,000 miles for $49K. But even that is too expensive for what you get.
We looked at these. The range wasn’t an issue for us. The quality is decent. They look cool. But as Jason said- they’re just too damn expensive.
With the way prices have been climbing lately, just hold the price for two years and everyone else may catch up.
I don’t get this. The spec sheet says this has an 84 kWh battery and a range of roughly 280 miles. Do you guys get a smaller battery pack? It is probably overpriced for what it can deliver though,and it’s a big enough car that they should cram a bigger battery in it.
It’s probably because we don’t do metric in the US
WLTP versus EPA test protocol?
Oh,yeah. That is probably it. Is the epa one more realistic?
The US spec ID.Buzz is EPA rated at 231 miles combined. In their steady state 75 mph highway range test Car and Driver managed 180 miles.
That range sounded bad at first, given that the original Type 2 was thought of as a road trip vehicle. Then I remembered the Bus my old man bought new in the early 70’s, and the frequency of roadside repairs, and I wonder if the percentage of time on the road is really any worse with the new version. Maybe the limited range is simply a nod to tradition.
I’m shopping for a new local shuttle for my hotel and the ID.Buzz would be an ideal use case for us (10 mile radius so the range isn’t a problem, can charge on site, would look great in our livery) but we really would like something with more seating. The Kia PV7 is definitely on the radar when it comes out.
I saw a bunch of the Euro spec electric vans plying their trade during a recent Denmark trip.
Couldn’t they just bring that one here instead of reinventing this wheel?
We wanted to love you, we needed to love you, but all we needed was not there.
VW missed the bus