Will demand for the Volkswagen ID Buzz outstrip provide?

Volkswagen’s forthcoming electrical minivan could not be higher named. Merely put, within the years that we have been writing about automobiles, nothing on 4 wheels has created fairly as a lot buzz because the VW ID Buzz with its adorably retro styling. But when all that spotlight interprets into precise patrons, the electrical microbus might find yourself being oversubscribed, at the very least to start with.

Charlie Corridor, chairman of the Volkswagen Nationwide Vendor Advisory Council, says the US might solely see 20,000 ID Buzzes imported this yr, in keeping with an interview immediately in Automotive Information. “It feels like we might have the chance for added European capability if we’d like it, however we’re nonetheless attempting to type out the place the demand goes to be globally,” Corridor mentioned.

Years within the making

VW’s plan to resurrect the long-lasting T1 Microbus goes again to 2001 in the course of the business’s flirtation with retro automotive design. Whereas autos like the brand new VW Beetle, Ford’s porthole-a-licious Thunderbird, and the ever-customizable Chrysler PT Cruiser made it to manufacturing, the Microbus idea by no means did.

A decade later, VW had one other go. This time, the Bulli idea was a battery electrical car (Bulli being the German nickname for the bus). However the specs for BEV ideas from 2011 look relatively underwhelming with the benefit of time. The Bulli made do with a 40 kWh battery pack—described by Wired on the time as “big”—which gave it a spread of 185 miles (297 km), with a high velocity of 87 mph (140 km/h) and a 0–62 (0–100 km/h) time of 11.5 seconds.

2016 introduced us the VW BUDD-e, the third idea to reimagine the T1 in 15 years. VW was mired in its diesel emissions scandal on the time, and the corporate had discovered faith, pushing the fast-forward button on its growth of different powertrains. VW took BUDD-e to CES that yr, and the corporate mentioned we’d “see a automotive that appears lots like this” utilizing a brand new “modular electrical toolkit” (often known as MEB, or Modularer E-Antriebs-Baukasten in German) by 2020.

Lower than 18 months after that, the fourth and last idea appeared. Now bearing the ID Buzz identify, it stole the 2017 New York Worldwide Auto Present, full with a magnetically levitating gnome on the dashboard.

2020 was maybe an bold purpose for the ID Buzz to enter manufacturing; that was the yr that VW’s first MEB-based BEV, known as the ID.3, went on sale in Europe. The coronavirus pandemic did not assist timelines, however the next yr, the US noticed its first MEB VW, the ID.4 crossover. However the query most individuals had was, “when’s the Buzz coming?”

Manufacturing begins

In Europe, the reply was 2022, though with a shorter, two-row ID Buzz variant that will not cross the Atlantic. We spent a day driving the Euro-spec Buzz, which was a particular attention-getter, if somewhat costly—as a lot as 64,581 euro ($67,981 in 2022) for the five-seater passenger mannequin earlier than incentives.

The US-spec Buzz has a wheelbase that is about 10 inches longer, and VW has used that further house so as to add a larger-capacity battery (91 kWh) and a 3rd row of seats. There’s additionally a brand new rear motor that is bigger and extra highly effective than earlier than, giving a complete output of 330 hp (246 kW), and VW did some small tweaks, like including sliding home windows and air flow to the rear compartment.

VW tells Ars that the ID Buzz will “almost certainly” arrive right here in North America within the fourth quarter of 2024, and we’ll have to attend till Q3 to learn the way a lot the US model will price. The automaker would not be drawn on manufacturing or provide numbers, so for now, we simply have Corridor’s feedback to go by. Here is hoping a mismatch between provide and demand does not lead to hefty markups on the dealerships.