What we learned driving VW’s new electric ID Buzz

COPENHAGEN, DENMARK—Few vehicles in the time we've been covering the industry have attracted—or sustained—quite the level of interest as Volkswagen's ID Buzz. Part realization of a decade's worth of concept cars and teases, part apology for dieselgate, it's an electric minivan with retro-cool styling, built on a solid electric vehicle platform. US-spec ID Buzzes are still some way off—we won't get the Buzz until 2024—but in the meantime, VW asked if we'd be interested in trying out the two-row, European-spec model, which is just about to go on sale the other side of the Atlantic.

Boxy microbuses have been a part of the VW lineup since 1949's original Type 2, also known as a T1, Kombi, or Transporter. As time went on, the buses evolved to be more angular, and they eventually started to look like any other minivan. But as VW found with the Beetle concept in 1994, there's a lot of affection out there for its early designs.

The first retro-looking revival attempt was a 2001 concept called the Microbus. This was before people realized you could daisy-chain immense amounts of laptop batteries together to make a viable electric vehicle, so the 2001 Microbus concept would have been powered by VW's internal combustion engines—most commonly its ubiquitous and cheaty diesels, no doubt.