Marysville, Ohio — The 2025 Volkswagen ID. Buzz EV has rolled up wins this auto awards season — including North American Utility of the Year — because it’s iconic, roomy and just so doggone adorable.
Though the Hoover family may disagree.
The fictional Hoovers, of course, are the most famous (infamous?) owners of a 1978 VW Microbus Type 2 (which inspired the ID.Buzz) and which co-starred in the movie “Little Miss Sunshine.” Its quirks on a cross-country trip to California are a comedic highlight of the movie, and the Hoovers would find my upgraded, $66,500 2025 ID.Buzz Pro tester a major upgrade over their ‘70s slug … except that it might be equally maddening on a long road trip.
I didn’t take the ID.Buzz cross country to a beauty pageant in Redondo Beach, but I did take it on a January adventure to see Honda’s new Marysville EV Hub (a good family destination) using, in part, General Motors Co. chargers. Indeed, the trip featured an EV trifecta — three manufacturers (VW, Honda and GM) that are among the most aggressive legacy automakers promising a transition to battery power over the next decade.
My trip was a cautionary tale on how EVs lag ICEs on range. As undeniably cool as Buzz is (I got as many looks as if I had been driving as Aston Martin DB9), it is a challenging vehicle to drive as one of its core functions: a road-trip family hauler.
Maybe there’s a script here for “Little Miss Sunshine 2.”
I filled the Buzz on my home 240-volt garage charger to 100% on a Sunday night with the goal of starting my overnight, 428-mile-round-trip-in-35-degree-winter at 7.30 p.m. Tuesday. If you have a garage and an EV, you should have a 240-volt charger for its efficiency and affordability. Charge overnight and local commutes are easy and cheap. It’s why (along with sticker shock) that EVs appeal to upper-income households — the EV is the daily driver, the gas car the trip mule.
The ID.Buzz is daring in design and even more daring for road trips. With just 234 miles of range, my rear-wheel-drive Pro model has less than half the legs of a comparable 484-mile range, gas-powered three-row VW Atlas SUV costing $45,475 — which, ahem, could make the Marysville round trip without visiting a filling station.
And with regular gas around $2.89 a gallon in Ohio, the ICE round-trip cost ($24) is 50% cheaper than the EV ($36) at fast chargers demanding about 50 cents per kWh. Oh.
My trip south was straightforward despite 50 mph wind gusts that moved the tall ID.Buzz around like it was sailboat jib. A Ford Transit panel truck passed me on I-75 and we were a comical pair blowing this way and that.
I made the trip in 4 hours and 35 minutes with two charging stops — or about an hour longer than an ICE car. Tolerable for the dysfunctional Hoover family — though I suspect mother Sheryl might have been freaked out by the second, late-night charging stop. A Blink fast charger in Dublin, Ohio, was located in a pitch-black lot next to a double-wide trailer. Eerie. I filled up for 25 minutes and was outta there.
The return trip however, would have tested the Hoovers’ patience.
For all its visual drama, the biggest advance of the ID.Buzz over the last Volkswagen EV I drove (sister ID.4) is the navigation system. It’s good. Three years ago, an ID.4 test car was unable to guide me to West Virginia on an urgent trip (I took my Tesla instead). This go-round, Buzz was nearly the Tesla’s match in mapping chargers — and exceeded the Tesla in details like allowing me to set how much charge I had when I reached my destination. With a history of bad experiences, I’ve learned to back up non-Tesla EV trips with the A Better Router Panner charging app — but the VW system was superior to ABRP.
I would need all the navi’s smarts to get home.
Rural north Columbus may be home to two ginormous Honda auto assembly plants, but like much of America, it is starved for charging infrastructure. My Dublin hotel did not have a 240-volt charger — nor did others nearby.
After briefly revisiting the eerie Blink charger Tuesday morning, I arrived for the Honda Maryville EV Hub tour with 81 miles of charge left.
OK, Hoover family, enjoy the tour and fingers crossed the navi can get us home without grandpa keeling over!
After the tour, the V-Dub charted a course of three charging stops for my trip home. Why so many for a 200-mile range vehicle for a 214-mile trip? Because batteries don’t like cold or highway speeds.
Despite a flurry of news reports claiming EVs have solved the cold range problem thanks to heat pumps, my heat pump-equipped Buzz lost 30% of range in the near-freezing temps. That is, its range was 164 miles instead of 234. Actually, 131 miles (80% of 164), since charging slows to a trickle over 80%.
Add my VW charge setting that I always arrive at a charger with at least 25 miles of range (should the charger not work and I need to find another), and the navigation system has its work cut out for it. No wonder two-car families leave the EV at home.
My first fast-charger destination after leaving Honda for my Oakland County home? A pair of ChargePoint stalls in Marysville.
The first one didn’t work.
After 15 minutes of fiddling with it, I tried the second. Success. But at pokey 62 kWh (compared to state-of-the-art 350 kWh fast chargers) the station took 33 minutes to add 70 miles.
My next charging stop (just off I-75 North in Findlay) brought a pleasant surprise: a fast charger designed like a service station gas pump. GM Energy has partnered with EVgo to create sheltered stations right next to service centers so you can plug in your car without getting rained on (looking at you, Tesla chargers) then go inside for restroom ‘n’ snack. Alas, the chargers aren’t any more reliable. After 10 minutes inside, I returned to the Buzz.
The charger had failed.
I restarted the laborious charging process, beginning with reconnecting the bulky CCS charger, which feels like you’re wrestling a boa constrictor. It would bedevil the Hoovers. “Miss Sunshine 2” would have a field day with that!
Ater 10 minutes, the charger failed again. Content that 72% of charge was enough to get me to my next (final) charging stop, I hit the road.
Happily, Buzz makes all this driving and waiting a pleasant experience. Its wood dash is lovely, and the floating center console gave me both ample kneeroom as well as cubby space. The rear two rows are just as roomy.
My final charge spot was at an EVgo charger in a McDonald’s parking lot, and I resisted the call of the Big Mac (I could put on a lot of pounds at all these charge stops). EVgo names its chargers, and this one was called “Waldo.” As in: Where’s Waldo when you need a charge?
The charger was AWOL on my first connection attempt using my EVgo charge card — but responded when I used my credit card. Yeesh. After another 20 minutes of charging, I was on the road home.
A gas car would have made the trip in 3 1/2 hours (including 15 minutes for bathroom breaks). The ID.Buzz took six hours.
VW’s reborn Microbus has come a long way in six decades. But road trips can still be a comedy of errors.
Next week: Comparo, Kia K5 vs. Toyota Camry
2025 Volkswagen ID.Buzz
Vehicle type: All-electric, rear- and all-wheel-drive, six- or seven-passenger minivan/microbus
Price: $66,045, including $1,550 destination fee (RWD Pro Plus as tested)
Powerplant: 86 kW lithium-ion battery pack mated to rear electric motors
Power: 282 horsepower, 413 pound-feet of torque (RWD)
Transmission: One-speed direct drive
Performance: 0-60 mph, 6.7 seconds (Car and Driver); top speed, 101 mph
Weight: 5,939 pounds (RWD as tested)
Fuel economy: 234-mile range (RWD)
Report card
Highs: Good navigation system; roomy, configurable interior
Lows: Low range; pricey compared to gas sibling Atlas
Overall: 3 stars
Henry Payne is auto critic for The Detroit News. Find him at hpayne@detroitnews.com or @HenryEPayne.
