VW ID.Buzz

[Cmaier]

VW will reveal its production ID.Buzz microbus EV on March 9th

VW now plans to reveal the production ID.Buzz EV, its reincarnation of the microbus, on March 9th.

www.engadget.com

My wife wants one of these badly. I have no idea how we’d charge it, unless there;s some sort of adapter to convert from tesla’s charger to whatever socket this thing uses.

 

[DT]

I loved the original concept, it was clearly not a production viable design, but had some fun ideas. Can't wait to see what they've retained - certainly looks like the same silhouette.

FYI, non-Tesla EVs use the J1772 spec for AC charging (aka, "Home/Destination Level 2"), and using one of those chargers with the Tesla adapter that comes with the car works great - in fact, that's what we do: use a 40a charger with a J1772 connector and I just pop on the Tesla adapter for the Model 3.

The other way - a Tesla charger with a 3rd party J1772 adapter seems to be super sketchy. The latter are all made by kind of 2nd tier EV accessory companies, and whether it works (and stays working ...) with your specific car is apparently a crap shoot.

I wish there was a reliable J1772 adapter, I'd take that and the TMC on the road with the Jeep.

 

[Cmaier]

I loved the original concept, it was clearly not a production viable design, but had some fun ideas. Can't wait to see what they've retained - certainly looks like the same silhouette.

FYI, non-Tesla EVs use the J1772 spec for AC charging (aka, "Home/Destination Level 2"), and using one of those chargers with the Tesla adapter that comes with the car works great - in fact, that's what we do: use a 40a charger with a J1772 connector and I just pop on the Tesla adapter for the Model 3.

The other way - a Tesla charger with a 3rd party J1772 adapter seems to be super sketchy. The latter are all made by kind of 2nd tier EV accessory companies, and whether it works (and stays working ...) with your specific car is apparently a crap shoot.

I wish there was a reliable J1772 adapter, I'd take that and the TMC on the road with the Jeep.

Yeah, I’m sticking with my tesla charger, so if she wants the bus she’ll need to figure out how to adapt to it, or she’ll be charging at 120V. Nowhere to put another 240V plug or adapter, and not enough electrical service to support another high-current charger (we’ll take turns charging, if we figure out how to make it work).

 

[DT]

Yeah, I’m sticking with my tesla charger, so if she wants the bus she’ll need to figure out how to adapt to it, or she’ll be charging at 120V. Nowhere to put another 240V plug or adapter, and not enough electrical service to support another high-current charger (we’ll take turns charging, if we figure out how to make it work).

There's also some "dual spec" chargers which look pretty neat, they run off a single circuit and have logic to divvy up the charge (might even be configurable[?]). The company that makes our offers one:

Grizzl-E Duo – GRIZZL-E

So that has both native Tesla __and__ J1772 connectors/cables and can charge concurrently.

Here's a review:

 

[diamond.g]

Yeah, I’m sticking with my tesla charger, so if she wants the bus she’ll need to figure out how to adapt to it, or she’ll be charging at 120V. Nowhere to put another 240V plug or adapter, and not enough electrical service to support another high-current charger (we’ll take turns charging, if we figure out how to make it work).

http://www.umc-j1772.com/ is where I got my Tesla Tap ages ago. I have the TeslaTap 50. Got it back in 2018 and have never had a problem with it when charging my Volt.

 

[Cmaier]

http://www.umc-j1772.com/ is where I got my Tesla Tap ages ago. I have the TeslaTap 50. Got it back in 2018 and have never had a problem with it when charging my Volt.

Some weird language on the description page for that. Not clear - does it work with the first gen wall charger? (I think mine is that). It says something like “we recommend you verify the charger you are connecting to does not exceed your EV’s voltage rating.” Not sure what that’s supposed to mean. The car and the charger are supposed to negotiate all that.

 

[DT]

http://www.umc-j1772.com/ is where I got my Tesla Tap ages ago. I have the TeslaTap 50. Got it back in 2018 and have never had a problem with it when charging my Volt.

I really want to score a reliable Tesla_to_J1772 adapter, so we could take our TMC on the road with the Jeep. The products on Amazon all sound pretty squirrely, TeslaTap has good feedback (with a Jeep) using the Wall Connector, very tempting, the 40a version is only $199.

 

[Cmaier]

I really want to score a reliable Tesla_to_J1772 adapter, so we could take our TMC on the road with the Jeep. The products on Amazon all sound pretty squirrely, TeslaTap has good feedback (with a Jeep) using the Wall Connector, very tempting, the 40a version is only $199.

Where‘s the tesla tap feedback?

 

[diamond.g]

Some weird language on the description page for that. Not clear - does it work with the first gen wall charger? (I think mine is that). It says something like “we recommend you verify the charger you are connecting to does not exceed your EV’s voltage rating.” Not sure what that’s supposed to mean. The car and the charger are supposed to negotiate all that.

I’ll be honest, I don’t remember what the difference was between Gen 1 and Gen 2 aside from Gen 2 having a setting that is supposed to prevent non-Teslas from charging. The TeslaTap Mini says it works with all generation of Tesla Wall Connectors so there is that.

Yeah the car and EVSE negotiate, though some vehicle chargers don‘t like 277V (which the HPWC and UMC seems to not care as much about). To be fair 277V is way less common than 208 or 240 so yeah, lol.

 

[Cmaier]

I’ll be honest, I don’t remember what the difference was between Gen 1 and Gen 2 aside from Gen 2 having a setting that is supposed to prevent non-Teslas from charging. The TeslaTap Mini says it works with all generation of Tesla Wall Connectors so there is that.

Yeah the car and EVSE negotiate, though some vehicle chargers don‘t like 277V (which the HPWC and UMC seems to not care as much about). To be fair 277V is way less common than 208 or 240 so yeah, lol.

THanks. I’ll look into this some more, in case my wife ends up really buying the VW at some point.

 

[DT]

Where‘s the tesla tap feedback?

Oh, I searched a couple of Jeep forums and saw people successfully using it with a 4xe, however, not with the TMC, but the TWC, I believe the latter has a setting for "classic mode" or something that allows these adapters to work better (vs. the TMC). There's quite a few reviews all over that give this product pretty solid marks.

There's a bunch of the same product under different brands that are apparently kind of flaky (like requiring switch on/off, etc., if they even work at all on a particular model):