Why we’re running it: Volkswagen is looking to repeat the glory days with a massive family EV, but is it as easy to love as a bug?
Month 1 - Specs
Life with an ID Buzz: Month 1
Welcoming the ID Buzz to the fleet - 22 November
"My absolute passion is for the brand, and to get the brand back to where it belongs – to the hearts of the people. Real Volkswagen again. A love brand."
VW CEO Thomas Schäfer there, outlining to Autocar earlier this year his plan to recapture the brand’s once-enviable popular appeal in order to compete effectively with fearsome new rivals that have comparatively little heritage, and to ensure its cars remain desirable in this era of increasing technical homogeneity between modern EVs.
For a tangible embodiment of this objective, look no further than the ID Buzz, a slick, smiley electric MPV that nods stylistically to one of VW’s most successful historic models – but is otherwise every inch the technically competitive flagship model it needs to be.
It must, at once, be a space-age family hauler that competes convincingly in a crowded field, while tugging on the heartstrings of diehard VW fans who might otherwise be completely disengaged with the marque’s current portfolio and positioning.
If you’ll excuse a modicum of self-indulgence, I think I’m quite well placed to judge the Buzz on its capacity to succeed in this endeavour. I was brought home from the hospital in the back of a Mk2 GTI, I’ve endured innumerable soggy ‘holidays’ in bay-window Type 2s, my best friend and I once rescued a T3 Transporter from the scrapheap, a succession of five-cylinder Golfs have graced my family’s driveway (presently filled by a current GTI and a Mk2 Polo), and my first car – which I’ve kept against all odds for more than a decade – was a 1972 Beetle.
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The appealing looks come from the 1,800 paint job, and its 'smile'. The sides are dull, the rear, rather ungainly. The inside is too minamilist. Surely by now car makers have realised the mistake in not giving us buttons?
And its nearly 70K!!!
I have seen 1 on the road. If it were 40k i imagine they would sell. But as it isnt, they are going to be very rare sight
Why doesn't it have three individual seats in the second row like a proper MPV?
I really like the looks, both inside and out, but it's way too expensive, and VWs software issues are very much still a thing. Maybe next gen ( if it gets one ).