VW launches Buzz EV ID US-Spec van with three rows of seats
Volkswagen’s ID Buzz electric truck is awesome. I spent some time poking around it in a studio last yearand while I didn’t get to drive it, I will say that VW nailed all things in terms of look and feel. It’s classic but not cute, and it will offer real practicality for people who want or need that valve form factor, but what if people need more space? Specifically like the third row seats?
VW has you covered there too, with the introduction of three-row ID Buzz electric van to US specifications on Friday. However, apart from an extra row of seats compared to the non-US versions, what does it offer buyers? For starters, it will be available in rear- or all-wheel drive, with the rear-wheel drive variant making a perfectly matched 282 hp and the AWD version making 330 hp.
Top speed is still limited, though three rows have a 99 mph limit compared to the 90 mph limit for the rest of the world. Both the AWD and RWD versions come with a sizable battery pack rated at 91 kilowatt hours, a significant upgrade over the two-row version’s 82 kWh pack. Maximum range is still TBD, but we expect at least close to 300 miles with such a large package.
Other rad features include VW’s largest glass panoramic sunroof with (thankfully) an electrochromic coating that allows the driver to control the opacity of the glass. If you’ve never tried driving an EV with a glass roof during a summer in California, I recommend you stay that way. It’s miserable.
Buyers have several options when it comes to seating. They can have bench seats in the second row in a 60/40 split to seat seven, or they can have a captain seat in the second row that reduces the maximum capacity to six. That bench also has a surprising amount of front/back movement – 7.9 inches – to make sitting in the back less uncomfortable.
Another new feature for the three rows of seats is to upgrade the infotainment to the same system found in ID 7 sedan coming soonalthough it’s hard to say for sure if it’s an upgrade, as it follows the same “remove all buttons” route that the current GTI has and it’s kind of lame to use. use.
Volkswagen says the three-row ID Buzz will go on sale in the US sometime in 2024, and we don’t have pricing information yet.