They just dropped off the VW ID Buzz, which is an EV designed to remind people of the VW Microbus of the ’60s and ’70s. Assuming they forget the original was inexpensive, light, and simple .. base price of the ID Buzz is $5 shy of $60k ($59,995) and for that you get a three-ton (5,968 lb.) luxury bus that’s propelled by electric motors feeding off electricity stored in batteries.
VW says the ID Buzz can go about 234 miles on a charge. But how far does it actually go? I have found there is almost always a significant disparity between the range advertised (and indicated) by an EV and how far it actually goes.
When the ID Buzz was dropped off, the range indicator said it had 202 miles of driving range, or 77 percent charge remaining. Then I turned on the AC. The range indicator adjusted. It now said I had 183 miles of range of range remaining. Nine miles disappeared before the ID Buzz even moved!
That’s apparently the cost (in range) of using the AC, which isn’t surprising because AC is among the most power-consumptive accessories in an electric vehicle but what are you going to do on a hot summer day? Not use the AC? I turned the AC down to the coldest setting and cranked up the fan to maximum – because it was hot and I wasn’t wanting to ration the cold to extend the range. That’s just silly – in a car with a price starting $5 shy of $60k. I mean, I was willing to accept no AC (and no heat) in the old Beetle I used to drive back in the ’90s. But I paid $700 for it and that’s what you get .
Ok, time to drive into town – which for me is almost exactly 13 miles there and so a 26 mile round-trip. I left my driveway with 183 miles indicated. When I got back, the range indicator indicated I had 142 miles of driving range remaining. That’s a disparity of 34 miles. I’d burned through more than twice as much indicated range remaining than had been indicated. If the trend holds true, the 142 indicated miles of driving range that remains may be only about half that – especially if it’s even hotter tomorrow and the AC has to work harder to keep the VW cool.
This disparity between indicated and actual driving range remaining reduces the range even more because it’s not safe to assume you can go as far as it says. It’s safe to assume you will out of charge before the indicator indicates and that could mean not making it to a place to charge. Ergo, it is prudent to leave not just a reserve in the “tank” but at least twice as much as you think you will need to make it to wherever you can charge Keeping always in mind that with EVs, running empty is a small calamity in that you’ll have to get the thing towed to a place where it can be charged since it’s difficult to bring electricity to a dead EV.
One other curious thing about the Buzz is that – like the original Microbus – there are quarter-windows up front, to the left and right of the windshield. But they are for display purposes only, being fixed-in-place. How ironic. How stupid, frankly. 
In the old Microbus, you could crack those quarter windows and get some breeze going; free AC as they used to say. In this electric iteration, using the AC costs. Why didn’t VW think ot make those quarter windows openable? Not only would it have been a cool retro touch that recalled the original – and isn’t that what this is all about? – it would have provided a way to keep cool without using the AC and bleeding precious range.
The why probably has to do with Saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafety in that moveable quarter windows might be considered “unsafe” under some regulatory idiocy. So instead, lot of glass area and no way to cool off the heat imparted by the sun except by using the AC and burning through the range. It makes almost as much sense as ordering a Diet Coke to go with your Double Whopper and Large Fries.
. . .
If you like what you’ve found here please consider supporting EPautos.Â
We depend on you to keep the wheels turning!Â
Our donate button is here.Â
 If you prefer not to use PayPal, our mailing address is:
EPautos
721 Hummingbird Lane SE
Copper Hill, VA 24079
PS: Get an EPautos magnet or sticker or coaster in return for a $25 or more one-time donation or a $10 or more monthly recurring donation. (Please be sure to tell us you want a magnet or sticker or coaster – and also, provide an address, so we know where to mail the thing!)
If you’d like a Baaaaa hat or other EPautos gear, see here!
Since it’s now a paperweight for the rest of your time with it, can you get them to swap something else to test drive? Or won’t they come for that piece of junk until the original plan?
Guess you better tell them to bring a flatbed for that thing.
So lame at 60k, that they can’t supply a power cord……
Morning, Rich!
I made it home with 89 indicated miles remaining, after trying (and failing) to “fast” charge it at two different locations. One was kaput, the other would not accept my credit cards (plural, I tried several). By that time, I no longer had enough range left to continue looking for a third place to try “fast” charging so I drove home – slowly, on the Parkway, to conserve range. There it will suit until next Weds. when it gets picked up. It has just enough range to get back in to town for charge (maybe) and I wash my hands of the thing. My 24 year-old truck is objectively superior as a vehicle than this device.
The thing I cannot fathom is why they would send me an EV without a charge cord.
A first-person account.
https://archive.md/id5Wt
You just need to ‘adjust your driving style’ Eric!
With an ICE vehicle, you drive wherever you want, with or without aircon, until you feel like stopping for a short break.
With an EV, you drive depending on where the next – hopefully functional and compatible – charger is. And then you wait…and wait.
As the manufacturers state, the driving range is ‘an estimate only’, after all.
There is a hilarious video by MGuy Australia on YT demonstrating how this works.
A couple flew from Perth, Western Australia, to Canberra, the capital city, to pick up a ‘long-range’ Tesla Model S.
They then decided to drive it back – a distance of some 2,300 miles. A substantial part of this trip goes across the desert – Nullarbor Plain – where chargers are, shall we say, rare. And, would you believe – powered by diesel generators!
The couple had a ‘heart-stopping’ experience while crossing the plains, having to cover a distance of 260 miles to the next nearest charger.
To manage that, they drove at an average speed of no more than 50 mph, with no internal heating (it’s winter in Australia) and were relieved to have made it, with hardly any charge to spare.
Luckily for them, that section is quite flat, because otherwise they would not have made it at all. They had believed that because the Tesla was ‘long-range’, they should be able to do ‘at least 400 miles’ per charge…
As Forrest Gump so aptly observed, you just cannot cure stupid.
Morning, John!
See today’s lead article – and the videos! I had a time of it yesterday.
The goal is to make you believe obvious absurdities.
A $60,000 hippie van is affordable for the young and hip.
A 6,000 pound vehicle is good for the environment.
Men can become women.
Trump is going to release the Epstein files and there will be prosecutions.
My 1968 Oldsmobile Delta 88’s Frigidaire air conditioner certainly decreased my gas mileage…when you turned it on, it made that mighty Rocket 455 V8 shudder. Mind you, that engine was more than capable of launching a 5,000 pound car into near earth orbit!
That said, filling up its 26 gallon tank took no more than 7 minutes on average, and I could always crack open the side wing windows or switch the HVAC system to Vent mode. In fact, I didn’t have to use the AC all that often.
Not sure if that’s true of the ID Buzz…
V dub is done they just don`t know it yet. Scout Motors is not going to save them unless International Harvester is somehow reincarnated.
Not knowing anything about the buzz, wouldn’t it make sense to make the top of an EV van solar panels to try to make as much charge as possible?
234 miles is pathetic. About 1 mile per 25 lbs. I don’t know if this is average but at $60k that’s $256 / mile. Seems pricey.
Hi Dan,
Yup. Most cars can go 234 miles with half a tank of fuel. And most actually go that distance, too. After a 26 mile drive, my ID Buzz that said it had 202 miles of range had 142 miles of indicated range remaining. And now I have to go wait at a “fast” charger, because I can’t charge the thing at home (about which more soon).
Aaah, but the rub is that my car can go 234 miles on a half a tank of gas, while still having either the A/C on (in the Summer) or the heat on (in the Winter), and not lose gasoline in the process of the using. Also, even if that were the case, filling up a gasoline tank is far quicker than finding an EV charger that may or may not even work, and then take much longer to “fill”.
Hi again, Shadow – enjoy today’s lead story, especially the videos!
The amount of surface on a vehicle won’t give you a lot of charging, maybe a couple hundred watts, but it’s still free so no reason not to generate a few miles while it’s just sitting.
Vent wings that open went away around the time ignition locks showed up as part of theft prevention…if memory serves. Although why anyone would want to steal one of these is beyond me.
My truck (it’s old) has wing windows, love them. I seem to remember theft being one explanation but I wonder how true that is. I figured it was just complexity and cost cutting. My uncle had an FJ40 Land Cruiser, the two door one that looks like a Jeep. It had kick panel vents. Now those are awesome. He called them cojones coolers.
Why is it that people sue manufacturers over gas cars that don’t work as advertised, while it’s totally ok with EV’s to overstate their mileage? The EV owners I know are always planning their drives around range; where to stop, whether to use heat or AC, etc. In the winter, they don’t run the heater, just the seat heater.
HA! “In the winter, they don’t run the heater, just the seat heater.”
I don’t know a single EV owner. That bit cracked me up. …Could be, they’re ‘effing crazy?
Therefore, they accept B.S.?
Caddy Shack:
‘You’ll get nothing and like it!’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0f6l1QljpMo
Morning, OP –
I don’t get it either – although it is a lot like the “mask” thing int that both “maskers” and EV people will contort themselves into pretzels trying to rationalize their “masks” and their EVs.
PS: This EV and the last one I got did not come with a home charge cord. Extra cost. Believe it – or not.
Not coming with a charge cord is absolutely obnoxious. Only the simps of the car world would accept this kind of humiliation with a $60k purchase. I see these kinds people all the time waiting in a 20-30 minute drive-thru line to get some shitty, over-priced Chik-fil-A or a $6 coffee at Starbucks. It boggles the mind.
ML,
The lard asses…..ummmm… southern Sea Elephants…..
are just chowing down (Bulking up??) for a try out audition to star in the next iteration of the …Jardiance Broadway Musical…..
Onward through fog “Short bus to school” types…..
5968 pounds is 2707 kilograms.
2300 pounds for the Microbus.
3668 lbs difference, 1663 kilograms.
50 33 pound monkeys on your back.
Make that 1650 kilograms on your back.
A camel’s back will break.
‘what are you going to do on a hot summer day? Not use the AC?’ — eric
Why, yes. This is what Tesla drivers do in the Arizona summer to conserve the precious range of the baaaaaattery: drive with the windows down, while unenlightened proles in hydrocarbon-fueled vehicles zip along in complacent, air conditioned comfort.
Do you not care about the cliiiiiiiimate, comrade?