2025 Volkswagen ID.Buzz
2025 Volkswagen ID.Buzz
2025 Volkswagen ID.Buzz
Although the far-back cargo area of the Buzz appears a little strange at first look, with baskets underneath a sturdy hinged door, the folded third row, and the folded second row all line up at the same level—save for a gap of a few inches between the second and third row. If you want to sleep in the thing, that’s nothing a good piece of plywood won’t solve. Remove the seats—they’re heavy—and the rearmost section bumps up to again require some sort of level-up, if you plan to sleep, live, or otherwise inhabit this vehicle for something other than just driving.
VW is guessing that the majority of Buzz customers will come from “large SUVs.” It boasts more interior space than the Atlas, in the footprint of a Cross Sport. VW also claims best-in-industry third-row legroom versus. other American-market vehicles.
2025 Volkswagen ID.Buzz
2025 Volkswagen ID.Buzz
2025 Volkswagen ID.Buzz
One thing VW has carried over from the ID.4 and the Euro-spec ID.Buzz is its one-fits-all power window controls, combining the front and rear window operation—for the otherwise very cool rear window-within-a-window in back—into one switch. Here it’s even more potentially overwhelming and confusing. VW, why did you subject us to this?
My only other dynamic gripe follows what’s otherwise a compliment—the absence of engine noise and great isolation of road-surface noise. Just above 65 mph we noticed some whooshing wind noise in the zone between the front pillar and the side mirror, which wound itself almost to a whistle by 80 mph. I should note the version I drove was still officially a pre-production prototype, so window sealing may not have been up to production snuff.
The ID.Buzz, in U.S. form, achieves a coefficient of drag of 0.29, according to VW, and the top speed is up to 99 mph (from 90 in earlier Euro versions).
2025 Volkswagen ID.Buzz
The pricing and positioning of the Buzz is the only bad trip here. It’s just confounding
Because of the way it was implemented—pragmatic interior, retro cues on the outside, but not overdone—the biggest puzzle in all of this is how and why VW sees the ID.Buzz as a niche model.
The Buzz starts at $61,545, including the $1,550 destination fee, with the Pro S, which includes all the active-safety tech, three-zone climate control, a power tailgate and power sliding doors, heated second-row outboard seats, and the quicker, revamped 12.9-inch infotainment system. Pro S Plus versions add the retractable tow hitch, a head-up display, Harmon Kardon premium sound, and in AWD versions only, the captain’s chairs layout and a heated windshield. The top 1st Edition costs $67,045 in single-motor form or $71,545 with AWD and adds the panoramic roof and two-tone look (optional separately), roof cross bars, and floor mats.
Our test ID.Buzz, a Pro S Plus in Cabana Blue and Candy White on the outside ($995 extra), with a Dune interior and the optional $1,495 electrochromic panoramic roof—huge, at 67.4 inches long and 40.8 inches wide—adds up to $67,535. That glass became a pearlescent gray as the sun shone on it. VW says that and the retractable trailer hitch are firsts for the brand in America.
2025 Volkswagen ID.Buzz
VW has no plans to build the ID.Buzz in the U.S. anytime soon, so there’s no hope for a $7,500 tax credit (although discount leases are likely via the EV leasing loophole). It didn’t even develop the Buzz through normal passenger-vehicle channels, instead turning to its commercial-vehicles unit to realize this product—which seems like it should have been a Golf-like project at the core of the company’s survival.
In 1965, when Microbus sales started to accelerate and get wrapped into the counterculture, the average cost of a new vehicle was about $2,650, and the admittedly no-frills Microbus lineup topped out around $2,550. According to the federal government’s official consumer price index calculator, VW’s $2,550 then would equate to about $25,400.
Today, the average price of a new vehicle today stands at around $48,000, and VW’s choice to sell this vehicle at 25% above that clearly underscores that they see it as a premium vehicle, a niche model that may come and go.
But in this format, the ID.Buzz could command a market of one for years. Remember when minivans made a design statement? The Chevy Astro Van, the Ford Aerostar, the Pontiac Trans Sport and the other “dustbuster” vans from GM, the Toyota Previa: This is just as head-turning, with staying power.
2025 Volkswagen ID.Buzz
The ID.Buzz really needed to be a just-the-basics $40,000 vehicle, sold much like Scion was selling its vehicles some years back, plus a modular interior and an endless lineup of official VW accessories. It would have sold like crazy—to businesses, to younger active types, even to families seeking to have a vehicle they can change the configuration of over the years—and it would have answered dealerships’ trepidation over the sustainability of the retail model in the EV era.
As it is, the ID.Buzz is a great product that limits the future of the brand in the U.S. within a ridiculously narrow bandwidth.
Will priced-out ID.Buzz buyers buy a Kia EV9 or base Rivian R1S instead? Will VW dealers behave with their markups? Let the craziness begin.
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