Latest news with #IDBuzz
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
398-Mile VW ID.Buzz 1st Edition Sold At Huge Loss
398-Mile VW 1st Edition Sold At Huge Loss originally appeared on Autoblog. Trendy VW sheds 15% of its value in five months In case you didn't know, fully electric vehicles depreciate at a rate that's 30% faster than gas-powered cars. Vehicles like the Jaguar I-Pace, Tesla Model S, and Nissan Leaf are some of the worst performers. Based on a recent Bring A Trailer sale of a Volkswagen we may have to add VW's cheerful electric van to that list. A 2025 version of the just sold for almost $11,000 less than its sticker price. To make matters worse, it was a highly desirable 1st Edition model with barely any miles on the clock. New Buyer Lucks Out The new buyer of this 1st Edition spent $61,500 on the EV, way down from its original MSRP of $69,995. However, it actually cost the original owner $72,385, once you take into account the destination charge ($1,550) and some options. The extras were an auto-dimming rearview mirror with HomeLink ($405), a 2-in-1 mobile EV charging cable ($350), and an $85 charge for prepaid scheduled maintenance services. This fully loaded EV has covered only 398 miles, which means the original owner got almost zero use of it before taking the loss of nearly $11k. It's possible that the owner expected to make a healthy profit by snagging a rare 1st Edition model and selling it again quickly, but the outcome here is precisely the opposite. It doesn't help that the hasn't been nearly as successful as one might have expected, given the nostalgic ties to VW's bus. Its limited range, high base price, and a poor infotainment interface are just a few of the reasons it hasn't found more buyers, with only 564 examples finding homes in Q2 of this year. In February, VW was already offering big discounts on the What Does A $61k Van Get You? View the 4 images of this gallery on the original article This 1st Edition model has a great spec, starting with the Mahi Green and Candy White paint, which works well with the retro 1st Edition wheels. Inside, it has Dune leatherette upholstery, and if that's not enough to brighten up the cabin, there's also a fixed electrochromic glass roof. The side doors and tailgate feature hands-free operation, and the front seats have massaging and heating. This van also enjoys heated second-row seats, three-zone climate control, a 12.9-inch touchscreen, and a Harman Kardon sound system. Dual electric motors produce 335 horsepower combined, and that goes to all four wheels. As per the window sticker, the EV returns 87/74/80 MPGe city/highway/combined, but the total range is poor at just 231 miles. Even so, the new buyer has paid almost exactly the same for this 1st Edition as what you'll pay for a new base model including destination ($61,545).398-Mile VW 1st Edition Sold At Huge Loss first appeared on Autoblog on Jul 21, 2025 This story was originally reported by Autoblog on Jul 21, 2025, where it first appeared.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
398-Mile VW ID.Buzz 1st Edition Sold At Huge Loss
398-Mile VW 1st Edition Sold At Huge Loss originally appeared on Autoblog. Trendy VW sheds 15% of its value in five months In case you didn't know, fully electric vehicles depreciate at a rate that's 30% faster than gas-powered cars. Vehicles like the Jaguar I-Pace, Tesla Model S, and Nissan Leaf are some of the worst performers. Based on a recent Bring A Trailer sale of a Volkswagen we may have to add VW's cheerful electric van to that list. A 2025 version of the just sold for almost $11,000 less than its sticker price. To make matters worse, it was a highly desirable 1st Edition model with barely any miles on the clock. New Buyer Lucks Out The new buyer of this 1st Edition spent $61,500 on the EV, way down from its original MSRP of $69,995. However, it actually cost the original owner $72,385, once you take into account the destination charge ($1,550) and some options. The extras were an auto-dimming rearview mirror with HomeLink ($405), a 2-in-1 mobile EV charging cable ($350), and an $85 charge for prepaid scheduled maintenance services. This fully loaded EV has covered only 398 miles, which means the original owner got almost zero use of it before taking the loss of nearly $11k. It's possible that the owner expected to make a healthy profit by snagging a rare 1st Edition model and selling it again quickly, but the outcome here is precisely the opposite. It doesn't help that the hasn't been nearly as successful as one might have expected, given the nostalgic ties to VW's bus. Its limited range, high base price, and a poor infotainment interface are just a few of the reasons it hasn't found more buyers, with only 564 examples finding homes in Q2 of this year. In February, VW was already offering big discounts on the What Does A $61k Van Get You? View the 4 images of this gallery on the original article This 1st Edition model has a great spec, starting with the Mahi Green and Candy White paint, which works well with the retro 1st Edition wheels. Inside, it has Dune leatherette upholstery, and if that's not enough to brighten up the cabin, there's also a fixed electrochromic glass roof. The side doors and tailgate feature hands-free operation, and the front seats have massaging and heating. This van also enjoys heated second-row seats, three-zone climate control, a 12.9-inch touchscreen, and a Harman Kardon sound system. Dual electric motors produce 335 horsepower combined, and that goes to all four wheels. As per the window sticker, the EV returns 87/74/80 MPGe city/highway/combined, but the total range is poor at just 231 miles. Even so, the new buyer has paid almost exactly the same for this 1st Edition as what you'll pay for a new base model including destination ($61,545).398-Mile VW 1st Edition Sold At Huge Loss first appeared on Autoblog on Jul 21, 2025 This story was originally reported by Autoblog on Jul 21, 2025, where it first appeared.
Times
6 days ago
- Automotive
- Times
I tried circumnavigating the UK in an electric van — here's why it was impossible
My annual circumnavigation of mainland Britain and Northern Ireland presented the perfect opportunity to try to prove that it was not only possible, but, ideally, a breeze to complete a four-week road trip in an electric van. Volkswagen thought so too, lending me an all-electric ID Buzz five-seater van, in two-tone candy white and bay leaf green, for the duration. The specs were as impressive as its surfy two-tone looks: an 84kWh battery that charged from 5 to 80 per cent in as little as 30 minutes and claimed a maximum range of up to 293 miles. The job was to survey the English, Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish coasts — a distance of some 4,800 miles — but since I had the entire month of May to complete the journey I set a maximum of 240 miles a day, leaving a minimum 53-mile safety buffer within which to find a charger for my anticipated daily 30-minute top-up. That may sound overcautious, but over the 16 years I've been doing this journey, I've seen loads of old service stations closed down, but never seen a new one open. You need apps to find chargers. A single app won't do because you can't be sure that it lists all locations, or that it will communicate with the actual charger you want to use so you can get loyalty discounts and receipts, so I downloaded Charge Assist, Electroverse, InstaVolt, Plugsurfing, Pod Point and Zapmap. They're all free, because they make their money in a variety of ways — that may include commission from charging providers, advertising or data analytics, for example — and soon their icons were crowding my phone. It was already becoming something of a faff and I wondered how useful they'd be in those parts of the nation where 5G is a popular fairytale, but, overall, I was extremely pleased with myself. I had a green van and a greener plan for a low-cost, zero-carbon road trip (if you ignore the upstream emissions from manufacture and electricity generation). That's not how it turned out. This year's circumnavigation began in Cleethorpes. I had to start it somewhere, so I started it there. My first charging experience, in the Meridian Point Retail Park, took a little longer than I expected, but I put it down to first-night nerves and used my extended stay to give the resort more of a going over than it really needed. • Revealed: the UK's 50 best beaches for 2025 Three days later, having followed the coast through Lincolnshire and Norfolk, I discovered what many electric vehicle (EV) owners already know. It was raining when I followed Electroverse's guidance to a Shell Recharge station in Woodbridge, Suffolk. The charger was a massive 300kW monster that made me wonder if I actually had time for a cup of coffee and a bun from the petrol station's food counter. I did, as it happens. I had time, in theory, for a two-bottle lunch, a chapter of Ulysses and a long kip, because a 300kW charger does not necessarily charge at 300kW. It can charge at up to 300kW, in the same way that broadband providers promise your connection will operate at up to the speed of light. Possible, in theory, but extremely unlikely. First off, few EVs can draw 300kW. The Audi e-tron, the Porsche Taycan and the Volvo EX90 are among the exceptions, but the VW ID Buzz pulls only 185kW. Second, if the battery is too cold, or too warm, you won't even get 50kW. Ditto if the battery is almost empty. Third, your charge could be slower than advertised because, er, there are other drivers charging, or it's a Monday and there are five crows perched in the lightning tree, or the cows are lying down. I didn't know this yet. I was simply excited to be plugging in, swiping my card and then watching in wonder as the output display rocketed from 5kW to 41kW. And stayed there. According to the van, it was going to take two hours and 49 minutes to reach 80 per cent. Even Dave T Dog was dismayed, but imagine how quickly the sweet summer holiday dreams of a family would sour as they roasted in a van in the hot corner of the M5's Gordano services. • 400 years of the the great British beach holiday in pictures And then another mystery arose. Because of the temperature, or some long-forgotten curse or because the moon was in Leo, the range at the recommended 80 per cent charge was now 233 miles, or 187 with the safety margin, meaning I would have to recharge twice in one day to cover the 274 miles and 18 beaches I was planning on inspecting between Woodbridge and Margate. The next day was worse. Despite beginning the day with a 90-minute top-up in a BP garage, the last 40 miles to Normans Bay felt like a scene from the 1953 film The Wages of Fear. A large part of the stress is caused by a smartarse onboard computer that, rather than simply reporting the remaining range, constantly recalculates based on how much power you're using at any given time. These fluctuations increase so-called range anxiety — or the fear of not making it to your destination — and while the AA says that running out of charge is rare, the solution is always a tow to the nearest charging point. Coming through Winchelsea in East Sussex the display said I had 31 miles' worth of power with which to make the 25 miles to my campsite, but as I climbed the steep hill at Tanyard Lane, the range dropped to 21 miles, then recalculated when I reached the flat to 27 miles. Given a signal I could have used my apps to find a late-night charger for a top-up, but my survival instinct was not that strong, and by the time I reached the Camping and Caravanning Club site, just seven miles remained. Luckily I'd paid for a pitch with an electric hook-up. Unluckily the van's plug did not fit the site's socket. Probably because I'd failed to salute a magpie earlier in the day. The next morning I crept the six miles into Eastbourne on the electrical equivalent of fumes, following the Electroverse app's directions to a high-speed charger in a Volvo dealership. How I laughed when they told me it was out of order, and how I chuckled again when I discovered that the trickle charger at the VW dealership — a tense half-mile away — would take six hours to bring me up to 80 per cent. • Revealed: 100 Best Places to Stay in the UK for 2025 I gave it an hour to get enough power to drive to Waitrose, where a 120kW charger told me it would take just three hours to fill my battery. Unless you're a student of urban decline or a fan of post-apocalyptic horror, you'll find three hours is too long to be in Eastbourne. I sat in a café one street back from the ruins of the seafront, watching as zombies lurched past. It gave me time to think. According to Zapmap, there were 40,479 charging locations in the UK at the end of June. That's five times more than the number of petrol stations, which have fallen from 40,000 in 1967 to about 8,000 today. Of the 82,369 chargers at those locations, 16,698 (20 per cent) are in the rapid or ultra-rapid band, ie those with capacity of 50kW or higher. But speed is relative. It takes about five minutes to fill and pay for a tank of petrol, meaning each pump has a throughput of 12 vehicles an hour. • Why this Northern Ireland beach is the UK's best Where you are on the road matters too — southeast England has 2,410 of the faster chargers; the northeast 594; and Northern Ireland just 190. If my van really could get from 5 to 80 per cent in 30 minutes, the charger throughput would be two EVs per hour, but since the average so far was closer to three hours per charge the true throughput would be closer to eight vehicles per 24-hour period. Fortunately EVs comprise just 4.5 per cent — or 1.5 million — of the 34 million cars on UK roads. Because most of them are charged overnight, at home, and used for average journey lengths of about ten miles, they rarely run out of charge, and their owners are unlikely to notice the massive inadequacies of the roadside charging network. After all, no one does Route 66 in a golf cart. Despite easing the pressure on car manufacturers to meet EV targets, the government still expects 28 per cent of sales in the UK in 2025 to be zero-emission vehicles. By 2030, the mandated target will be 80 per cent, rising to 100 per cent in 2035. By then, according to a 2022 report by the government's Electric Vehicle Energy Taskforce, '500,000 public chargepoints [will] need to be deployed … to provide drivers with the confidence to buy electric vehicles and the means to charge them'. • I love camping and have done for 40 years — these are my best tips But availability is one thing. The time it takes to charge is another. The 340-mile journey from Manchester to St Ives via the M5 and the A30 takes six hours in a petrol-powered car. In an EV it could take up to ten hours when you factor in two charging sessions, and how will that affect Cornwall's tourism appeal? 'We know public charging is still a concern for people who cannot charge at home or for the occasional particularly long journey on high days and holidays,' Volkswagen said. 'We continue to work to develop partnerships to improve access to charging for our customers and urge government to support the development of a national, interoperable and affordable public charging network.' Despite the challenges you, like me, may still be tempted to hire an electric van for your UK road trip. The rental agency clearly thinks you should, claiming it's budget-friendly, eco-friendly, city-friendly, quieter and encourages slow travel. The last claim is definitely true and by the time I reached Weymouth, two days later than scheduled, I knew my plan had failed. It wasn't the van's fault. The ID Buzz is the prettiest vehicle VW has designed since the T2 split-screen: a design classic begging to be customised, but I'm not sure the UK is ready for an all-electric touring van. I'd covered less than 15 per cent of the 4,800 miles and if I couldn't handle the range anxiety of the UK's soft south, how was I going to cope with the wilds of Wales and Scotland? So I admitted defeat, called VW and asked if it had anything that ran on diesel. It brought me a California camper van. It took five minutes to fill, had a range of 550 miles, an electric pop-up roof and a fridge that looked great when I loaded it with beer. That's all you need to know. But I will try again. Chris Haslam toured the UK in a Volkswagen California campervan ( Have you travelled in an electric camper van, or are you considering it? Let us know in the comments
Business Insider
15-07-2025
- Automotive
- Business Insider
My family of 5 outgrew our Subaru Outback. We test drove the Volkswagen ID Buzz and loved it — except for one thing.
We've had our Subaru Outback since 2018, when my first child was just a newborn. Now that our kids are 7, 5, and 5, while the car is still as reliable as day one, it's become a source of stress because our kids fight so much in it from the lack of space. My husband had been suggesting a minivan for our family, with three rows to space the kids out and sliding doors for easy loading. I, however, refuse to be a minivan mom. I find them ugly and impractical. That all changed when I saw the new electric Volkswagen ID Buzz, so we decided to test it with our family — and now we are torn. We need more space for our family so decided to test out the electric Volkswagen ID Buzz. There's no denying we need more space in the car. With three car seats, growing limbs, and all the stuff from school and sports, the back row is tight. That's the major cause of fights in our car, which makes any trip (short or long) incredibly stressful for whoever is driving. As for the rest of the car, it's got what we need: a big trunk, the ability to place a turtle top, and an overall reliable engine. My first car was a Volkswagen Golf, which I loved, so I've always been a bit partial to the brand. We also tested the Volkswagen Atlas Crossport, which has two rows instead of three, and even having just a bit more space in the second row made our kids more comfortable and manageable. When we saw previews on social media of the ID Buzz, VW's new version of their 1950s Bus, I was intrigued. It looked cuter than a van, but still offered what we thought we needed. The third row is a true row. When the kids saw the VW ID Buzz, they all squealed in excitement. I won't lie, it looks so cool in person. Even while driving it to summer camp drop off, we saw people turn around to do a double take and kids pointing as we drove past. If you don't like the attention, be warned that this car attracts all the looks. The ID Buzz we tested didn't have captain seats, so we had to lower one seat for one of our kids to sit in the third row. As I was setting up the car seats, I noticed that the third row is a full row. I'm 5'6" tall and was able to sit comfortably with extra space for my legs. Loading the kids was pretty easy. You can open the sliding doors with the key, and even with the seat lowered, it was easy for all three of them to navigate their bodies inside. One detail I loved was the ability to open the doors three different ways: from the remote, as mentioned, from the actual door, and also from a button near the driver's seat. This last option made it so I could get in the car, type in our destination on the screen, and not have to wait around to close the doors. It doesn't have a ton of bells and whistles. One of the biggest complaints online has been the interior design, which some feel is lacking compared to how innovative the exterior design is. For my family's needs, this wasn't a problem at all. Coming from a 2017 car to a 2025 model, we could tell the difference in things like heated seats in the middle row and a more dynamic screen (our Subaru's screen doesn't even show a map). That said, the VW ID Buzz doesn't have that many bells and whistles, and I actually like that. We recently drove a BMW 7 Series after getting a free upgrade from a rental car company, and I really disliked all the extra buttons in the back row. The trunk space was limited but enough for day-to-day use. The trunk space in the ID Buzz is nonexistent compared to the space in our Subaru Outback if the third row is in use. I do like that the ID Buzz has two baskets that can be covered by a platform, allowing us to store groceries or sports equipment without taking up precious trunk space. While the amount of space wouldn't be an issue on a day-to-day basis, if we were going on a road trip, the space in the trunk does feel a bit limited. But there was one major drawback for us. Overall, I've found the Volkswagen ID Buzz easy to drive, fun, and reliable. While there's criticism for the range — which is advertised at 230 miles — as a city car to move kids from one location to the other, the range felt fine. We were able to run almost a full week without charging, and then stopped to charge while during groceries for about 30 minutes. The one criticism I have for the ID Buzz is its price point. The 4-wheel-drive, which is what we would need in Maine, is retailing at over $72,000. This puts it over our other car, an Audi Q7, the 2025 model of which is now retailing at $70,000 and is considered a luxury SUV.
Reuters
15-07-2025
- Automotive
- Reuters
VW resumes exports of ID.Buzz bus to US, Focus reports
July 15 (Reuters) - German automaker Volkswagen ( opens new tab has resumed deliveries of its electric minibus to the United States, a company spokesperson said on Tuesday, confirming a report by Focus magazine. The exports were halted due to a technical recall and the issue of tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump's administration, a Handelsblatt media report had said last week. The vehicles have been modified accordingly and can be returned to customers after the recall, a spokesperson said. The US regulator had criticized the vehicle's rear seat as being too wide, saying it allowed three people to sit on two seats, posing a safety risk.
