- The Volkswagen ID.Buzz has a most EPA-rated vary of 234 miles in the US.
- However vary is only one a part of the equation when planning a highway 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 incredible, which isn’t one thing you possibly can 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 seeking to get VW’s electrical minivan for the aim of cross-country journey.
The unique Microbus from the Nineteen Fifties and Nineteen Sixties was removed from a luxurious automobile, but it surely made a reputation for itself as a fantastic road-tripping machine. So, can the brand new ID.Buzz dwell as much as its ancestor’s legacy? Properly, it’s difficult.
Our associates from The Quick Lane EV traded of their Tesla Cybertruck and received a brand-new Volkswagen ID.Buzz pondering they’d use it for lengthy and really lengthy highway journeys. However a dodgy charging expertise, freezing temperatures and a snowstorm made the automotive’s inaugural highway journey a “whole prepare wreck.”
As you possibly can see within the video embedded beneath, the crew 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 without spending a dime for the primary 500 kilowatt-hours.
Nonetheless, all of the stalls have been damaged and couldn’t be mounted remotely, based on an EA name middle employee who stated {that a} service crew 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 driving 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 practically 70 kWh of power was disbursed.
The subsequent charging cease was at a Shell, which required a separate smartphone app to begin utilizing the stall as a result of there was no bank card reader on the charger. Not nice, however the crew was in a position to recharge right here.
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Nearly 100 miles later, one other charging cease was vital, 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 routinely. A number of charging stops have been made through 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 automotive is “approach cool” however the route planning is approach behind what Tesla is doing with their Supercharger community and the non-Tesla charging infrastructure continues to be lackluster–though it’s quickly enhancing throughout the nation. Subsequent 12 months, EVs made by Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche and Scout will acquire entry to the Tesla Supercharger community within the U.S., which ought to make highway journeys a lot simpler, however a concrete timeline has not but been disclosed.
