Goodbye electric VW ID Buzz. You died so young, and we wanted you so much.

Photo above - VW's "ID Buzz" poses for a portrait outside of some rich guy's mansion. Production was cancelled this week because most people can't afford to buy it.

Okay, the first hint that things weren’t going well at VW was the ID Buzz unveiling in 2017 at the North American Auto Show. It took another 8 years for the 2025 model to begin arriving. Now it’s completely cancelled, after 1 year. (see MSN link below). In the meantime, VW had to pay a gazillion dollar fine to the EPA for deliberately faking it's diesel emission tests.

Although the headline says it costs $60,000, most of the early ID Buzz deliveries were in the $72-$75K range. Maybe higher if the dealer applied a markup to the sticker (“We only have the one in stock. Act now . . . it might be gone tomorrow . . . “)

It certainly IS a cute vehicle. Two tone paint, just like the $2,500 original decades ago. Gorgeous interior. Lotsa windows. But let's talk about the limited range, and long recharge times. Well, those are handicaps should have been expected. The other VW BEV (ID3) has the same problems. Well, we can’t expect EVERYONE to make great cars, right? And there was no point in VW waiting longer to bring the ID Buzz to America while trying to fix it's shortcomings. The ID Buzz wasn’t going to get any cheaper if VW waited, and minivans from competitors with more practicality and lower prices were showing up.

And there’s the missing $7,500 EV rebate. Did that hurt sales? Probably not, because the ID Buzz is totally manufactured and assembled in Europe, it NEVER qualified under Biden’s rules, let alone Trump’s. Which makes a $75,000 “well equipped” sticker all the more of a shock.

I’m rewatching “The Wire” as I write this. An episode where drug kingpin Stringer Bell is taking business courses at a community college. The professor engages Stringer in a dialogue about product quality, market saturation, and competitors. It’s clear that whoever at VW was managing the 8 yearlong ID Buzz project never took a community college course on these things.

I’m just sayin’ . . .


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