Volkswagen ID. Buzz GTX 2025 Review

Three of Volkswagen’s four 2024 ID. Buzz vans will arrive in Australia around the Christmas/New Year window this year, and three of them will slide beneath the Luxury Car Tax threshold for EVs.

The ID. Buzz GTX won’t be one of them, though, with Volkswagen asking $109,990 in return for six or seven seats and two electric motors, and it’s a later starter, arriving in Australia somewhere in the first quarter of 2025.

As for the mainstream Buzzes, the $79,990 Cargo will use the shorter of the two wheelbases, with three seats up front and two pallets worth of space in the back, while the stock short-wheelbase, five-seat ID. Buzz Pro will start at $87,990.

The ID. Buzz GTX is effectively an upgraded version of the long-wheelbase, seven-seat ID. Buzz Pro (which lists at $91,290), in both specification and performance.

The most obvious difference between the 2024 Volkswagen ID. Buzz GTX is the exterior design tweaks and the wheels, which jumped from the ID. Buzz Pro’s 19-inch diameter to 20-inch Solna alloys (and 21-inch units as an option).

For all that, Volkswagen Australia hasn’t announced the full specification and options list for the GTX, because it will lag behind the Cargo and Pro twins by at least a month or two.

The crux of it is that the ID. Buzz GTX only comes to Australia in long-wheelbase form, so it will deliver either six (2+2+2) or seven (2+3+2) seats (depending on buyer preference), enormous luggage capacity, more of everything than the Pro variant and still punches like a Golf GTi.

It takes the baseline equipment levels of the ID. Buzz Pro LWB (with goodies like sliding electric doors on both sides, an auto-dimming mirror, matrix LED headlights, a heated steering wheel, three-zone air conditioning, a nine-speaker audio system and heated front seats) and adds to it.

The ID. Buzz GTX adds its own body kit (which is more about style than functionality), with black, hexagonal grille elements, ArtVelour-trimmed, powered front memory seats and unique badging.

The infotainment system is upgraded to version 4.2 software, matched to a larger 12.9-inch touch-screen, a new voice assistant system and ChatGPT built in. Volkswagen insists the infotainment system has faster response times than the counterparts from earlier ID. Buzz models. Which is good, because they were pants.

The hated slider controls remain for volume and temperature settings, but they are now illuminated, which eliminates one major issue.

There’s every reason to expect the 2025 Volkswagen ID. Buzz GTX to be kid-safe in the real world, with five ISOFIX child-seat anchors.

Euro NCAP rates the ID. Buzz at five stars, with a 92 per cent score for adult occupants, 87 per cent for children, 60 per cent for road users and 90 per cent for safety assistance systems.

There’s an anti-theft alarm that also monitors the interior, a reversing horn and towing protection as well, and an area view system, which integrates the rear-view cameras.

Autonomous emergency braking, with front assist systems, is designed around pedestrians, cyclists, motorbike riders and even scooters. If that all fails, the wide array of MEB-platform safety systems combine with front airbags, a centre airbag for the front occupants and curtain and side airbags to reduce the severity of the impact for passengers.

The 2025 Volkswagen ID. Buzz GTX gets over-the-air updates and is permanently connected to the web so it can use “Swarm” technology, to “talk” to other cars and infrastructure from up to 800 metres away.

This system apes bird murmuration, paying close attention to the nearest six or seven cars to minimise its chances of hitting them. And if the other cars, too, have similar “swarm” technology, they can all do it together.

The system uses a large multi-function camera array, which sits down near the bottom of the windscreen, to help with its lane-change facility’s tech suite, including side assist, rear traffic alert (it stops itself to avoid crashing) and an exit-warning system, so you don’t crash coming out of car parks.

It carries Level 2 driver assistance, which includes a lane-keeping system that’s more intuitive and less fidgety than most.

There is also a towing-assistant, although the long-wheelbase GTX can only tow 600kg unbraked and 1600kg braked, so it’s not going to be an SUV substitute.

Where the five- and seven-seat ID. Buzz Pro models use the stronger 210kW/560Nm electric motors that are more powerful than those used in Europe, the GTX lifts the bar again.

It mates that motor, which sits on the rear axle, with an 80kW/134Nm motor to drive the front wheels, and while that adds up to 250kW, Volkswagen can’t give a precise torque figure for the GTX.

With the output limited by what energy can be drawn from the battery at any point, it’s not a simple matter of adding up the two motor outputs, so it ends up at 560Nm – the same as the rear-drive ID. Buzz Pro. But it’s still enough to make the GTX variant the quickest people mover out there, and it’s only a tenth of a second behind the Golf GTi to 100km/h.

Both motors drive through single-speed transmissions, and while the GTX reaches 100km/h in 6.4 seconds (1.5 seconds quicker than the seven-seat Pro), it is speed limited to 160km/h.

The Australian homologation isn’t stamped yet, but the Europeans have arrived at a 453km WLTP range for the 2025 Volkswagen ID. Buzz GTX.

It achieves this despite being significantly brisker than its rear-motor siblings, but also significantly heavier, at 2469kg. Inside, it is fitted with 312 lithium-ion cells to deliver 91kWh of energy capacity (up from the SWB’s 84), and it’s rated at 191 Watt-hours of energy for each kilometre (19.1kWh/100km).

The ID. Buzz GTX?can charge at 11kW on an AC charger, taking more than nine hours?for?a full charge, but it can also swallow 200kW on a direct-current charger, speeding up the recharging time significantly. On a DC charger, battery charge can jump from 10 to 80 per cent in 26 minutes, but there is no V2L, V2H or V2G capability to charge tools or houses.

The numbers, in the case of the 2025 Volkswagen ID. Buzz GTX, lie like a log. Yes, it’s 1.5 seconds quicker to 100km/h than the similarly-seated ID. Buzz Pro LWB, but it doesn’t actually feel it. There’s more urgency off the line, for sure, but even that is tempered by the sheer mass of the thing, and it pushes so much air out of the way at highway speeds that it doesn’t feel much different at overtaking speeds. The ID. Buzz GTX offers a choice of driving modes, with the standard setup allowing you to coast and the regeneration mode not quite strong enough for one-pedal driving.

You’re paying $18,700 more for the ID. Buzz GTX, but the larger wheels and smaller sidewalls don’t do it any favours in ride quality. Not only does it handle road imperfections without the same poise as the lesser variants, it can also adopt a nose-forward, pitching wobble over lateral undulations not evident in the cheaper stablemate.

The driving position is high, but easy to get used to, and it’s a simple machine to drive. It feels competent and safe at all times, and it has enough cargo capacity to frighten your credit card at Ikea. There’s also enormous head, leg and shoulder room in every seat.

The infotainment is much better to use than it was, though the sliders still bite and the steering-wheel thumb buttons are annoying and easy to trigger accidentally.

It feels as though Volkswagen’s main ambition with the ID. Buzz GTX was to make sure nobody became uncomfortable, not even the driver – ride quality excepted. The steering is, in the Volkswagen family way, secure and safe without ever threatening to communicate, and the brakes are solid and calm to use, even in a crisis.

The cabin is surprisingly quiet, given the potential for boom-box sounds, and it’s abetted by the silence of the powertrain.

The interior of the 2025 Volkswagen ID. Buzz GTX is, basically, four things: big, comfortable, versatile, and littered with disappointing, cheap-feeling plastic components.

First of all, the big. At 4960mm long, 1985mm wide (or 2212 with the mirrors) and 1927mm high, there is a ridiculous amount of space inside, and a 3240mm wheelbase lends it an air of spaciousness. It’s so ludicrously large that the luggage capacity is 306 litres, even with all seven seats occupied. Fold the rear two down into the floor and that booms to 1340 litres, and fold the middle row down and the volume grows to 2469 litres.

The three-seat middle row can move fore-and-aft by 200mm, too, and there’s the option of three pairs of two seats instead. The centre console is completely removable, too, giving it the flexibility of a walk-through cabin, aided by lighting in the footwells of the front and the rear. Captains chairs in the front provide armrests inboard, but leave the outer elbow dangling. A luggage compartment cover keeps goods safe from prying eyes (and the harsh Australian sun).

In addition, there are up to seven USB ports, three-zone climate control, nine speakers, Apple CarPlay/Android Auto connectivity, hiding holes scattered throughout the cabin and a clever inductive-charging hole for smartphones, angled down into the dash so they can’t fall out.

There is also keyless locking, and Mode 2 and Mode 3 charging cables and power assist for that enormous rear tailgate are also included.

The disappointments come with the feel and touch of the harder plastics, which feel cheap, and the dash-top plastics, which feel brittle. Both ruin the look and feel of the ID. Buzz GTX, and we’d prefer more soft-touch materials.

Frankly, the 2025 Volkswagen ID. Buzz GTX is a good van, but it isn’t even close to being the best ID. Buzz.

That falls to the seven-seat ID. Buzz Pro that is here months earlier, so you wouldn’t even have to wait. But there’s a lot to like, for all that, and the flagship is a competent, well-executed electric van that can and will carry seven people comfortably. Just not as comfortably as an ID. Buzz Pro would.

And that’s the ID. Buzz you should buy, and pocket the change. But the Australian market is all about buying more, and the GTX is more, so we’d expect it to soak up an enormous percentage of ID. Buzz sales here.

2025 Volkswagen ID. Buzz GTX at a glance:
Price: $109,990
Available: Q1 2025
Powertrain: two permanent magnet synchronous electric motors
Output front motor: 80kW/134Nm
Output rear motor: 210kW/560Nm
Combined output: 250kW/560Nm
Transmission: Single-speed reduction gear
Battery: 91kWh lithium-ion
Range: 453km WLTP (provisional)
Energy consumption: 19.1kWh/100km
Safety rating: five-star NCAP

For everything you auto know about EVs, listen to carsales' Watts Under the Bonnet: the electric car podcast

Join the conversation at our Facebook page
Or email us at editor@carsales.com.au