You have probably heard that VW had to pull the ID Buzz off the market – for 2026 – on account of a disastrous 2025.
The “electrified” visual reincarnation of the much-loved Microbus of the ’60s and ’70s wasn’t loved much, chiefly on account of its $60k base price – easily three times the inflation adjusted price of a ’60s or ’70s Microbus, which was around $2,500 circa 1971 (the equivalent in today’s money of about $20,000). A large part of the appeal of the old Microbus being it was affordable. Being an EV, the ID Buzz was not.
But it was the meager 234 mile best-case driving range that harshed the buzz – and left ID Buzzes sitting parked at VW dealerships for most of 2025. Which is why VW pulled the plug for 2026, so to speak. Sending more of these things to dealers who still have inventories of the 2025 things is something like taking another Number Two in a backed-up toilet.
Well, VW has arrived at a solution. It is bringing the ID Buzz back for 2027 – with a bed. Not out back but inside.
At least now you’ll have a comfortable place to sleep while you wait.
Ironically, it will be called the Tourer rather than Camper. It’s ironic – because the meager range won’t allow for much touring since 234 miles isn’t very far. In gasoline terms, it’s the equivalent driving range of about 7 gallons of fuel in a vehicle that gets about 35 MPG. Put another way, driving the ID Buzz is like driving a gas-engined vehicle with a half-empty tank and so having to stop twice as often – and then wait many times longer while the battery recovers charge.
The bed will come in handy.
But did VW stop to think how many people will want to spend time camping out at Wal Mart, Sheetz or wherever the charging kiosk is? Has anyone at VW considered that the whole point of camping – and touring – is to get away from wherever you are and (ideally) get to someplace new that’s far away from Wal Mart and Sheetz? The good news is many campgrounds do have electrical hook-ups. But you do have to get there first and the hook-ups they have aren’t high-voltage EV “fast” charger hook-ups, so you’ll be there for a few hours, at least.
Good thing about the bed.
Not so good thing about the price, though.
VW hasn’t yet officially released the pricing structure for the 2027 ID Buzz – which will supposedly be arriving at VW stores later this summer – but it is unlikely the base price will be less than it was in 2025, because it’s two model years later now and VW would lose even more money if it tried to sell this device in 2026 (for 2027) for even less than it cost to manufacture in 2025. It is likely the 2027’s price will be even higher than the ’25 model’s $60k price to start – if you want the bed – because options are generally not free.
The good news is you will get more than just a bed – assuming you want to buy in.
The 2027 ID Buzz Tourer will also get window blinds – so you’ll have some privacy when you’re camping out at Wal-Mart or Sheetz – as well asventilation panels to air the interior out, outdoor chairs and a table, plus (hilariously) a retractable tow hitch. It’s hilarious because as with any EV, if you hitch anything to the ID Buzz, thee distance you can drive before you run out charge will plummet by 30-50 percent, depending on how heavy whatever you’re pulling is (as well as how cold or hot it is outside). Even if you only lost 20 percent of the VW’s best-case, 234 mile fully charged driving range, you’d now only have about 187 miles of best-case driving range left. It’d be like driving around on a quarter tank of gas, with the needle just barely above empty – except filling up will take at least an hour or or so, assuming you can make it to the next “fast” charger before it rolls silently to a dead stop by the side of the road.
Good thing about that bed, again.
But probably not so good about what it’ll cost you. It’s just a guess, but packages typically add a couple thousand to the bottom line. In Europe, where VW also sells – tries to sell – the ID Buzz – the Good Night Package, which is essentially what the Touring package will be here in the United States, added just shy of $4,000 to the base price in 2025. So it will probably be at least that much here, this summer. That means a 2027 ID Buzz with the bed will probably sticker for around $65k.
It’s an expensive room for the night, isn’t it?
. . .
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This is quite a clever concept, because it allows ID.Buzz owners to sleep while they charge. And as we know, conventional EV owner wisdom says that if you charge your EV while you sleep, charging only takes ten seconds. Conversely, if an ID.Buzz owner sleeps while he charges, it will only take him ten seconds to sleep – five seconds to go to bed, and five seconds to get out of bed.
Great stuff, Stufo!
I’m looking forward to my nap time in one; they ought to be sending me one this summer sometime.
I saw an iD Buzz being loaded on a roll back last week at the side of the rod.
In other news an electric bus caught fire and was destroyed in Glasgow last week.
No, I had not heard: “You have probably heard that VW had to pull the ID Buzz off the market – for 2026 –”
Seems like a worthless piece of sheet I want to know nothing about.
Long, Long ago, I once thought VW was perhaps worthwhile.
Yah, “will probably sticker for around $65k”??? Are you kidding me?
Bwahahaha! If I ever do see one, I know what the drivers name is: Dufus.
I live in the suburbs of Chicago and recently took my 09 Challenger R/T on a road trip down to the gulf coast of Mississippi, round trip was 1,800 miles. Way down took me 12 1/2 hours, only stopped to fill up 3 times which took maybe 10 minutes total and hit zero traffic, had I been in an EV the trip would’ve taken me at least 20 hours with all the stops to recharge. The way home took a bit longer, 14 hours, but that was due to making a few more stops along the way. EVs are nothing more than toys for rich morons, simple as that.
Amen, Dr!
I Keep trying to hip people to the fact…
RE: “in an EV the trip would’ve taken me at least 20 hours”
Much like taking a Greyhound?
I recently looked into such, from Davenport Iowa to Champaign Illinois takes about 2 to 2 1/2 hours by car.
But, by Bus, it takes 14 freaking hours!
Shocked the sheet out of me.
So Very, like your E-lectric battery powered vehicle trip example.
(I took a Greyhound once, it super-Sucked. If that’s what having an EV is like?.., whoa.)
When I saw the photo and title, I assumed VW might be responding to the many news articles and YouTube videos about people in the U.S. and Europe being forced to live in their vehicles because they cannot afford other housing. Could VW really have thought that those who can’t afford an apartment would spend $60K to join the multitudes flooding neighborhood streets with RVs and trailers, many broken down and rented at exorbitant rates from so-called “vanlords” (never underestimate the entrepreneurial creativity in this country). Maybe when these embedded vans fail to sell, some local VW dealers will mark them down to a price point at which those who can’t afford apartments might find them to be an attractive substitute — so long as they don’t have to be moved often if at all.
Indeed, Bill –
There is also the downside of sleeping in a known fire trap.
I. can’t. EVEN. express. WOW. …Sigh.
…There was a time, long ago, when, ‘technology’ was expected to LIFT PEOPLE Up.
UP!
I guess, That was a speed bump, and we missed it?
“Down. Down….”
The B-52’s – “Rock Lobster” (1978) HD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNlfoHm6rgs
Hopefully unlike the last ID Bust, the charging cable is included!
I bet if they made a hybrid model for half price it would sell.
I bet if they made a ICE model for 1/3 price it would sell.
Durability, practicality – and, that it doesn’t burn your house down – have no factor in your equation?
…Just, sheep sheet sells?
I suppose.
Roy Book Binder’s classic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHb7KQVaEf4&list=RDUHb7KQVaEf4&start_radio=1
They would sell more cars if they started manufacturing clones of their 1960’s vehicle lineup.
The real problem is the people that own the legislators, across the West, and the insane regulatory framework we’re being subjected to because of those people.
Until those people are separated from power, nothing is going to change.
Yeesh, you’re an echo of Mr. Yukon Jack.
RE: “They would sell more cars if they started manufacturing clones of their 1960’s vehicle lineup.”
Durability, practicality – and, that it doesn’t burn your house down – have no factor in your equation?
…Just, sheep sheet sells? Put a poster up on the wall, it’s the same as having, The Girl?
I suppose. Psft.
You’re a LLM bot, aren’t you?
No. I’m a Midwesterner.
A real. Live. Human Being.
Sign of the times, a recent article in the WSJ headlined “Now is a Great Time to Buy a Used EV”. Right, because gas is expensive and you’re not great at math buy an EV that will cost you $10,000 in a couple years to replace the battery. That is if you can even get one, never mind all the other shortcomings of EV’s. Sucker.
Id buy an ev for about 2k.
Why?
…Durability?
…Practicality?
…Resale value?
I mean, I’m trying to understand such a short time preference. When I was a teenager, I could see your choice.
Now, not so much.
…Maybe, you’re old and expect to die soon?
If so, maybe?
…No next of kin worthwhile? IDk.
Every mileage may vary.
Myself, I’d rather ride a Donkey – or a tiny pony – than buy one. …Psft, or, walk.
Hell that’s old idea having a bed all the jappanes market vans of the 1990s had the rear seats make a bed you can get the vans now nice for 15,000 and there 4wd with diesel engine not some battery death trap that will roast you in bed.
I find it hilarious that they’re marketing this thing for “touring/camping” when one of TPTB’s population control goals is to prevent us serfs from traveling anywhere (and forcing EVs down our throats is, by itself an obvious indication of this goal).
Listen: they’re marketing this thing for THE ILLUSION of “touring/camping”.
THINK: They are pretending to be your friend.
(But, i think you know that.)
Don’t forget about Porsche 917. It was designed with a monstrous 4.5- to 4.9-liter flat-12 engine, an air-cooled powerhouse that could produce up to 630 horsepower in its early form—and significantly more than 1000 in later turbocharged variants.
Good grief.. this agenda driven new world order sucks.
We try to avoid it at all costs 😀
“camping out at Wal-Mart or Sheetz”
More like down by the river.
I wonder. What’s your Plan C when all else fails?
The hitch is for a 25kw genset to keep the pos going…..Silly krauts.
I still can’t seem to figure out why VW refuses to bring back the diesel engine that got them into “trouble”. That engine was a thumb in the eye of the EV market, and that’s the reason it was attacked. Everyone knows this.
RE: “I still can’t seem to figure out why VW refuses to…”
You seem like a dim bulb.
But, I’ll try to ignite ya
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2026/05/ryan-mcmaken/we-are-living-in-the-fourth-american-republic/
Corporatism, man. That’s why.
Well, there they go again, as the Gipper used to say — the blockheaded krauts, that is. No matter how many times they get their teeth punched in, then get kicked to the curb by the bouncers, their fanatical teutonic obsession drives them to return to the scene of the crime, Groundhog Day style, to get their teeth punched in and their carcass kicked to the curb once again, just like yesterday and the day before. Dummköpfe!
Volkswagen’s lard-ass ID
BustBuzz isn’t even the half of it. Fantastically, VW imagines that it’s going to peddle EREVs — Extended Range EeeVees — to Americans under the Scout Motors badge. This may be the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of.Scout is going to come a cropper, just like the ID
BustBuzz. Billions of dollars will be written off. VW may go broke. After all, Germany, with its crushingly expensive green energy, is finished as a manufacturing base. Here’s what Germany’s industrial future looks like:https://ibb.co/FbPY0d7C
If VW really wants to go retro, bring back the Hindenberg for slow and leisurely trans-Atlantic flights. Just because it crashed and burned the first time, in 1937, doesn’t mean stubborn krauts should stop trying. Maybe add some fire extinguishers and provide Nomex suits and parachutes for each passenger, in case disaster strikes again. Deutschland can do this! 🙂
It may not be a problem, it looks like the Russians may be finally fed up with the Krauts feeding munitions and assistance to the Ukies. There are new rumors of war…
Great analysis! Kind’a makes me wonder how much more-attractive these electric appliances might be if the price of gasoline became so high that it might allow EVs to actually compete with IC-engines! Gee whiz! Maybe VW is planning to exploit something like a very long closure of the Strait of Hormuz? That can’t be .. could it? Naaa ..
Thanks, Robin!
I had all kinds of fun not-driving the ID Buzz VW sent me last year….
Well once they build the data center down the road and your electric rates go up 5x, $7/gal will look cheap.
Word is, no one should call them, “data centers” anymore.
They are, ‘Surveillance Centers’.
Got it? Alligator?
Saw one of those in a perking lot last week. It was really quite an ugly vehicle.
Beauty is criminal in a world where truth is treason.
This might be the biggest joke in automotive history. And you thought Germans didn’t have a sense of humor…
If you really want to be top dog at the charging station, show up in a Lightship. This $157,000 beast has a power assist motor system that will reduce the burden on the tow vehicle, allowing EVs like the Rivan SUV to pull her without as much of a milage penalty. You can even back feed power from the battery pack to your house in case of a power outage while it’s spending most of the time parked next to the garage. Charges up at any North American Charging Standard (NACS) station, or at home on a level 2 plug.
The RrrVee market is on the verge of crashing and burning. This absurd Lightship is the analogue to the 1930 Cadillac V-16, introduced just two months after the 1929 stock market crash, when everyone thought boom times would soon return. Instead, the Thirties proved to be a lost decade.
Just five 16-cylinder Cadillac Sport Coupes were built for the 1939 model year. Maybe 20 or 30 Lightships will get built, if they’re lucky. It’s wartime, you know. 🙁
Yep. I keep an eye on Craig’s List for a good deal on a V6 towable trailer. The prices are sky high. Meanwhile you can get a nice 20 year old Airstream that needs some metal polish for almost nothing. Because to tow it you need to spend 6 figures.
Yes the RV market is in trouble. RV’s are very expensive and they are rarely used. Mostly old rich people buy them but with old age comes loss of physical strength and mental faculties. It take energy to drive long distances. SO most of these expensive RV’s end up just sitting around for most of the year.
Back in my youth years I thought about buying a Ford or Chevy full size van and putting a sleeper couch in back. Check out “Blue Highways” an autobiographical travel book by William Least Heat-Moon, published in 1982. It chronicles his 13,000-mile journey across the United States on lesser-known roads, exploring small towns and the people he meets along the way, reflecting on themes of self-discovery and the American experience. He didit on the real cheap but had a whole lot of fun. You can probably find that book in the local library.
Roy Book Binder’s classic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHb7KQVaEf4&list=RDUHb7KQVaEf4&start_radio=1
RE: “RV’s are very expensive and they are rarely used.”
From this view on the porch: that. just. ain’t. so.
Maybe, someday. However; today, ain’t someday.
Is it different in Euro-peasant-Land?
I’m guessing, you’re not American?
My coworkers dad saw thru the RV hype at retirement. The dad’s friends bit on RV fever, woo hoo. The dad bought a nice new Cadillac for way less than a class A motor home.
I agree completely with his view – why drive some behemoth around, overnighting mirror to mirror in some RV ‘park’ and try to deal with a tiny bathroom at 68 years old. Then who’s going to wash/wax/maintain the monster? Nope, drive in quiet and comfort, stay at nice hotels w/ a normal bed and bathroom- rested and ready for another comfortable day on the road.
I suppose, it’s All About, The Money?
So much cheaper to park in a parkinglot than it is to stay at, “nice hotels w/ a normal bed and bathroom-“.
Maybe, it’s a freedom issue?
Sparkey’s idea of roughing it – arrive at my favorite Lake Chelan resort, walk down the stairs (walk, ugg) to the pool, if it takes longer than 8 minutes for my drink order to show up that’s roughing it. OMG! They replaced the blonde server with a brunette, the humanity!
You can buy a lot of hotel/resort time using just the investment return on the money saved buying a car vs a class A motor home.
Why can’t this be offered as a hybrid, or an ICE vehicle? How successful would it be? Lots more than now, betcha…but…
What have all the car makers been told by (((TPTB)))??? Why have all of them pushed EV’s to the tune of losses in the “billions and billions “, as Carl Sagan used to say???
Because car makers know what we don’t, that TPTB are forcing this issue, that they’re creating an existential crisis, designed to literally kill all of us proles & goyims. And as much as I detest our government, it’s the (((khazarian mafia))) running it from the inside that’s truly destroying the US and western civilization.
YMMV….
I can’t grasp why they don’t bring back the air-cooled boxer 4. If VW re-introduced the air-cooled boxer 4 with some modern updates and started putting it into cheap cars and mini busses, they would sell faster than they can make them.
Because of emissions and the limitations of air cooling.
As far as the “limitations of air cooling”, the VW Beetle (the air-cooled iteration) being a #1 global seller seems to dispel that as an utter myth. If they could make the car a success in the 1940’s, then SURELY they could create a modern version.
As far as emissions goes, I can’t imagine a world where we couldn’t create an air-cooled engine with decent emissions. I hate to point this out, but jet engines are completely air-cooled and are very clean, emissions-wise. An apples to oranges comparison, perhaps, but engine and materials technologies have come far in the last 50 years. Like most other problems, the only thing to overcome is economics and regulations. I think the tech is there.
Chrysler was experimenting with gas turbines since the early 1950s.
Chrysler did just that in the early 1960s with the turbine cars that were loaned to ordinary people for an extended time as a real world test. Those who were chosen to evaluate the concept liked the idea of instant heat. Acceleration lag and the restriction on fuel sources (no leaded gasoline allowd) were the two major complaints. The sad part that thanks to the USA government most of them were crushed, only a few escaping destruction. Jay Leno has one that is operational.
Hi Letmepic,
The thing about air cooling is – fundamentally – power. The old Beetle’s air-cooled engine made something like 65 horsepower. My ’64 Corvair’s air cooled six made 110 (gross). This is ok in a sub-2,000 lb. car (in terms of performance) but it is probably no longer possible to build a “compliant” car that weighs less than 2,500 lbs. and probably closer to 3,000. To move that much weight takes more power and that generates more heat. Possibly a high-performance oil cooler and more oil capacity (along with a really good fan system) would work. But then there’s the problem of air-cooled engines not being as easy to keep with the optimum temp range for “emissions.” The latter is why Porsche had to go water-cooled, according to what I’ve heard.
Thank you Eric for properly answering.
But I’ve got to tell you – this will be my last post here. I’ve enjoyed your writings for many years. I’ll probably still continue to read occasionally but honestly it’s just become so tiring reading the divisive comments here and watching people argue about things they know nothing about as if they are experts.
Someone asks as question you assume to be in good faith and the next thing you know it’s devolved into a debate and often with name calling (not the case here) with someone that knows nothing about the subject at hand.
Shame on me. In an era of AI if someone has a legitimate question like why air cooled engines are no longer competitive, they could simply find the answer via AI if they were operating in good faith and actually wanted to learn something.
You used to have a good contingent of true gear heads, automotive engineers and industry insiders, and even some thoughtful, entertaining ladies like Raider Girl and RS. Not sure where they have gone but it’s a shame the comments here are now more of a wasted time suck than a good use of my time.
Keep fighting the good fight against the EVs and ADAS.
Yeah, let’s use a jewish AI to provide a biased answer to a question rather than having a nice discussion. Grow up.
Bye bye, now.
Way to make his point.
I dunno Mark in BC, your response is rather a bit,… pussy.
His whole comment reads like a robot:
“Shame on me. In an era of AI if someone has a legitimate question like why air cooled engines are no longer competitive, they could simply find the answer via AI if they were operating in good faith and actually wanted to learn something.”
Maybe, he’s a clueless YoungUn? Idk. It’s likely.
Who talks like that?
Learning, is messy.
But, for sure, it reads like a robot. WHich means, he/she/hopefully-not, ‘It’, needs some lessons about growing up!
The 94-98 Porsche 993 is usually given as example to the pinnacle of what’s possible in an air cooled car.
Porsche were even able to turbocharge the engine, the very last M64.60 version making around 450 HP with twin turbos. Just more evidence that the late 90s was the absolute peak of automobiles. Love or hate 911s the 1998 993 GT2 RS was an absolute marvel of automotive ingenuity, engineering and manufacturing.
To the original point, there’s no reason to think air cooling wasn’t feasible but it did take a car designed around making it possible at higher HP. So it had reached it’s practical limit used in a general purpose vehicle.
Air cooling even when done with no serious economic limitation did have an end to its natural evolution. Liquid cooling is quieter and allows more power in a comfortable vehicle around you. Can’t put the genie back in the bottle in the market broadly at this point. People won’t tolerate it and the only reason they should is cost. Even when Porsche designed it originally for the VW it was an acknowledge economic decision as liquid cooling was already well known. It’s just that all cars of the era were lower power and slower. The whole sea rose in performance. A 993 GT2 in terms of power is what you can get standard in a lot of sedans and SUVs.
RE: “Love or hate 911s”
I never drove one.
I neither, Love, nor hate them.
Seems like you know a lot about them.
Nice reading your thoughts.
…Makes me want to drive one.
Exactly. It CAN be done, and in deference to “Burn It Down”, I think it SHOULD be done. Personally, I imagine a hybrid air/liquid cooled modular boxer engine that comes in 2cyl blocks that can be bolted together to scale up to 2, 4, 6, 8, or even 10cyl engines just by bolting blocks together. Solenoid valve heads would simplify the drive train and provide endless cam profiles at the push of a button. Ahh, the things I could create if I had a few million bucks just lying around.
Letmepicyou simply doubles down & shows us how little he knows.
1st by changing to now wanting a air/liquid cooled motor – so merging the worst of both worlds. The weight and complexity of liquid cooling with then emissions problems of air cooling.
Solenoid Valvetrain idea is over 30 years old and has never been successfully implemented for reasons of durability, inability to handle high rpms, and the fatal failure mode of catastrophic engine damage when valve control is lost due to either electrical or mechanical problems. Then there is also the issue of cooling the solenoids and and valves which has not been successfully addressed.
Has no idea how difficult it would be to keep such a modular engine sealed.
Has no idea of the implications of crank flex and how difficult it would be to have enough ridgidity to the modular case to resist crank whip.
Has no idea about the implications of noise that customers object to on air cooled engines.
Thinks if he had a “few million” he could develop such a motor not realizing that it takes Billions of dollars to develop and certify a new engine.
In short, just another talking head that knows nothing about developing an engine.
Billions! LMAO! You should have just gone for broke and said trillions. Or maybe the entire GDP of the planet.
No. Just…no.
Why was Smokey Yunick able to build a 327 small block that dominated the 400+CI engines in NASCAR again?
Because one guy that’s not afraid to innovate and flip the bird to the “experts” can do things “experts” can’t even dream of or imagine to be possible.
You would have been one of the “talking heads” laughing at Smokey.
Until he whooped your ass on the track, anyway.
Nitrogen Oxide emissions are the problems IIRC.
So, “LIFE”, is The Problem? Bill?
Yeesh, per goobermint The EPA, “Nitrous oxide emissions occur naturally through many sources associated with the nitrogen cycle, which is the natural circulation of nitrogen among the atmosphere, plants, animals, and microorganisms that live in soil and water.”
Correct, that was the claim, because the combustion process of an air cooled engine cannot be controlled as precisely as a more massive liquid cooled engine.
Though how much it really matters should be the question.