The Volkswagen ID Buzz had nice vibes, however a restricted vary and excessive costs led to weak demand, and ultimately Volkswagen’s determination to cease promoting it in america. However it did nonetheless win the 2025 North American Automotive, Utility and Truck of the Yr Award for Utility Automobile of the Yr, so a minimum of there’s that. Properly, apart from the half the place NACTOY’s president lately informed Autoblog that he regrets not giving that award to a distinct car. Oops.
At this 12 months’s 2026 NACTOY awards, Autoblog requested NACTOY President Jeff Gilbert if there have been any awards he wished could possibly be taken again or occasions he would have voted in a different way. In accordance with Autoblog, “Gilbert did not ponder lengthy” earlier than answering, “You do not have to return twenty years, you solely have to return one 12 months.” Contemplating NACTOY named the Honda Civic Hybrid its Automotive of the Yr and the Ford Ranger its Truck of the Yr for 2025, that remark alone would not essentially implicate the ID Buzz, however he then known as the Volkswagen out by identify:
Gilbert defined: “Should you have a look at North American Utility of the Yr [for 2025], it was the VW ID Buzz, which was a enjoyable car to drive, however the mere proven fact that, okay, Volkswagen has pulled that from the market this 12 months… I feel if jurors knew what the gross sales output was gonna be for the car, perhaps they might have determined in a different way. That was an especially shut vote; solely a few factors separated the ID Buzz from the Hyundai Santa Fe, and y’know, in hindsight, if that vote was taken right now, I do not know if it could have come out the identical approach. However hindsight is 20/20, you’re taking your greatest shot.” The ID Buzz suffered from defects that earned it final place within the 2025 J.D. Energy Dependability Research, so poor gross sales aren’t the one blot on its American ledger.
ID Buzz out
Whether or not you’d contemplate a NACTOY award when purchasing for a brand new automobile or not, this does function an ideal reminder that every one awards have their limitations. Irrespective of how nice a brand new automobile is to drive, it takes time to learn the way dependable it really is, and there is all the time the chance that it could possibly be canceled the following 12 months. It is also completely attainable for a automobile to be higher than that 12 months’s competitors, whereas nonetheless not being the very best within the section, just because the superior alternative wasn’t eligible for the competitors that 12 months. And that is earlier than you get to vehicles generally being extraordinarily troublesome or unimaginable to acquire.
As nice as it could be to repair the issues with automobile awards, comparability assessments, and opinions generally, virtually talking, I additionally do not actually understand how you’d really do this — largely as a result of most options require much more money and time than is ever accessible. Plus, the extra producer assist you get, the extra affect they will have over the outcomes. Heck, Client Experiences even goes so far as to purchase the overwhelming majority of the autos it assessments and surveys a whole lot of 1000’s of homeowners yearly to assemble as a lot reliability information as it might, and but, folks nonetheless like to complain that they are doing it incorrect.
That is additionally one of many causes I am an enormous fan of Tyre Critiques. The workforce over there opinions tires, not vehicles, however additionally they acknowledge that totally different drivers have totally different priorities and mean you can alter the weighting of every class to suit your specific scenario. For instance, if it rains rather a lot the place you reside, you can provide extra weight to the moist efficiency outcomes, which can result in shopping for a distinct tire than the one which gained the newest comparability check. Having one thing like that for vehicles can be nice, however, after all, good luck discovering the cash to make that occur.
