VW’s electric Bus reboot is finally arriving in the U.S.. And by design, it’s hard to imagine a better way that VW might have positioned an electric van for the past and the future, all at once.
Everybody wants one. Sure, it’s late and it’s been wracked by decades of false starts and concept vehicles, and by now the original Hippies may have ended their traveling days. But across generations, everyone has stories and feels tinges of nostalgia upon seeing the nose of this van and the signature two-tone themes.
This past week I drove the ID.Buzz not in San Francisco but on the rural back roads and through the suburban communities of north Georgia. Based on the diversity of questions, gawkers, and thumbs-ups—love from a tattered Tacoma, an Explorer, and a Cybertruck—it took all of 10 minutes to see that mass-market demand for this thing beyond “blue” America and counterculture hotpots is on the verge of boiling.
2025 Volkswagen ID.Buzz
2025 Volkswagen ID.Buzz
2025 Volkswagen ID.Buzz
The ID.Buzz gets smiles everywhere it goes and hums above the frequency of American EV discord, whether or not it’s electric, which is no small feat this election year. Of course it’s electric, and who cares if it’s electric, all at once.
If VW was fretting about the timing, it made me wonder if the late arrival helps this thing realize its potential—because the ID.Buzz isn’t an awkward, two-dimensional homage to the past.
Unlike a long list of vehicles in recent automotive history—including, let’s be honest, VW’s New Beetle—the Buzz doesn’t push its retro waves so insistently that it harshes your mellow. The Buzz offers just the right amount of retro-fun on the outside, but inside the Buzz is just a great van that takes full advantage of its EV platform.
The ‘50s and ‘60s air-cooled cues may be there, but from the inside out, from any angle but the front, the Buzz is more a reboot of the Eurovan formula. It’s (almost) a flat-floor box on wheels, with three rows of seating, good for up to seven, and a huge amount of versatility and cargo space.
2025 Volkswagen ID.Buzz
In U.S. form, the ID.Buzz is offered in a series of seven different two-tone schemes pairing various colors with white, or a Cherry Red-and-gray two-tone, or monochromatic white, gray, or black. And for now and the foreseeable future the ID.Buzz comes to the U.S. only in this three-row form, with an overall length of 195.4 inches, riding on a very long wheelbase of 127.5 inches. Its overall height of 76.2 inches makes it about 10 inches taller overall than VW’s ID.4 crossover, while still offering 6.1 inches of ground clearance that should be just fine for getting down two-tracks on the way to campsites or trailheads.
VW decided at some point that it couldn’t launch the ID.Buzz in the U.S. with its original standard-wheelbase form factor—thus adding two long years to its arrival date. So for us, the upgrades include about a 10-inch stretch, a new infotainment interface, software improvements, and a more powerful rear motor—as well as a bigger 91-kwh battery (vs. the 82-kwh pack in those Euro versions).
2025 Volkswagen ID.Buzz
2025 Volkswagen ID.Buzz
2025 Volkswagen ID.Buzz
2025 Volkswagen ID.Buzz
How does the ID.Buzz drive? In a word: heavy. Yes, you do feel all three tons. It’s also softly sprung, and clearly tuned more for a compliant ride than for handling. But thanks to the low center of gravity and precise steering, it’s never a handful. And if you’ve done plenty of drive time in full-size, truck-based vans and minivans alike, it’s a driving experience that’s clearly in the minivan zone. The ID.Buzz is quite wide, at 78.1 inches without the mirrors, and on the narrow Georgia backroads, with no shoulder, I appreciated its predictable behavior and easy lane placement.
In parking lots, the same thing goes, within the reality that it’s every bit as long as some three-row SUVs. In single-motor rear-wheel-drive form as the one I drove, the turning circle is an amazing 37.4 feet, although AWD versions will raise that to 42.7 feet. Having real, old-fashioned, through-the-windows outward vision—beyond camera systems and beeping sensors—really helps.
2025 Volkswagen ID.Buzz
2025 Volkswagen ID.Buzz
2025 Volkswagen ID.Buzz
While VW hasn’t outlined any serious changes to suspension tuning in refreshing this model for the U.S., this ID.Buzz didn’t provide as much nosedive under hard braking as we experienced with a drive in the shorter version a couple years ago—perhaps a benefit of the longer body.
The ID.Buzz gets VW’s own uprated electric drive unit (called AP550 and now used in the 2024 VW ID.4) at the rear wheels, making 282 hp and 413 lb-ft of torque. Those upcoming AWD versions will get the same drive unit at the rear wheels plus an inductive motor at the front wheels, making 99 lb-ft of torque and upping the total output to 335 hp.
Although one editor who drove the ID.Buzz called it sluggish, I found it to be plenty perky with the single-motor setup. 0-60 mph times will be 6.0 seconds in dual-motor form, according to VW, while rear-wheel-drive versions like the one we drove take it to about 7.5 seconds. Towing capacity for the ID.Buzz is 2,600 pounds for a braked trailer, or 1,650 pounds unbraked.
Yes, it’s heavy. Even in its leaner rear-wheel-drive form that we test-drove, it officially weighed in at just 32 pounds short of three tons. Add the dual-motor AWD setup and you’re at 6,197 pounds.
2025 Volkswagen ID.Buzz
As in other VW EV products, a twist of the shifter allows access to either the ‘D’ mode, which lets you glide with minimal regeneration, or the ‘B’ mode, which dials up regen somewhat but remains quite mild. Switching the drive mode to Sport makes each of these levels slightly higher, with Sport and ‘B’ a good companion for hilly, twisty roads, but there’s still nothing quite like a one-pedal mode here. But brake pedal feel and blending are exactly what they need to be—predictable and progressive.
VW says that the ID.Buzz gets 2.5 miles per kwh (83 MPGe) combined, with the EPA highway cycle yielding 2.2 mi/kwh (75 MPGe). In a 110-mile loop up into low mountains, including some U.S. freeway speeds, fast-moving backroads, and mid-speed suburban streets, with outside temps around 50 degrees Fahrenheit, I averaged 2.6 mi/kwh according to the trip computer. Then, on an easygoing highway cruise, most of it pretty level at 65-70 mph, I averaged 2.4 mi/kwh.
2025 Volkswagen ID.Buzz
We charged the ID.Buzz, too, with Level 2 charging that flexed its 11-kw onboard charger, and with some DC fast-charging. In an experience that admittedly wouldn’t mimic what most owners would have on a road trip, we plugged a 160-kw CCS connector in at 44% and still saw a peak of 117 kw around 49%, with the state of charge reaching 90% in about a half-hour. VW says that DC fast charging at up to 200 kw enables a 10-80% charge in as little as 26 minutes.
In all, while a 100% charge amounts to as little as 191 miles according to the gauge cluster, we saw better, with our results roughly corresponding to the Buzz’s EPA range rating of 234 miles (or 231 mi. in AWD form).
2025 Volkswagen ID.Buzz
Trip planning is built into the native navigation system, and it will start preconditioning of the battery pack to access the maximum charge rate automatically with a charging stop along the route, or with a press of the virtual button on the screen. And if you want to bypass it all and go with the mapping app of your choice, you can still pair your phone for Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. I mixed it up between CarPlay and the built-in interface, and both sides worked great.
The three-row VW ID.Buzz also has a lot of flexibility in door bins and various storage places. The tall console between the front seats can lift completely out of the vehicle, as a sort of mini-cooler if you wish, and the pull-out drawer with cupholders and more storage stows away neatly to keep it feeling airy and spacious. Two levels of door bins and a dash tray give you plenty of space for the smaller pieces of a road trip.
2025 Volkswagen ID.Buzz
2025 Volkswagen ID.Buzz
2025 Volkswagen ID.Buzz
I found the grippy phone shelf just to the right of the steering wheel to be an ideal place for my phone to charge wirelessly without sliding around. And in the effort to kit this model out a bit better for three rows, there are now eight USB-C ports on board. Front seats are heated, cooled, and power-adjusted, providing an inbound armrest plus an upright driving position and the kind of back support I like for longer trips.
The sliding door powers open and closed in a way you’ll find absolutely familiar if you ever had premium minivans in the household—and, it just barely stays out of the way of charging-in-progress, we found. The biggest choice ID.Buzz buyers might face, other than the color, of course, will be the seating layout—trading out the middle bench in our model for second-row captain’s chairs and a six-passenger capacity (the only way for AWD versions).
