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Volkswagen ID.Buzz hits Petersen Museum ahead of North American debut in 2023

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The Volkswagen ID.Buzz is on display at the Petersen Museum. VW’s all-electric van follows the iconic design of the 1950s T1 microbus. 

“The Petersen Automotive Museum will debut the all-new electric VW ID. Buzz to the public, starting October 21, 2022. This will be the first time the production ID. Buzz will be showcased in North America before it becomes available in that market in 2023. The vehicle is set to go on sale in 2024,” said an invitation to Teslarati from the museum.

Volkswagen reconceptulized the popular microbus from the 50s into the all-electric ID.Buzz. VW unveiled the 5-seater ID.Buzz and 3-seater ID.Buzz Cargo on March 9 and started production in June 2022. ID.Buzz deliveries are expected to start in Europe. VW plans to debut the ID.Buzz on the North American market by 2023 with sales beginning in 2024. 

According to a presentation from VW’s Commercial Vehicles division, the company will release the ID.Buzz Long-Wheel-Base AWD variant in North America. It will have seven seats.

The ID.Buzz is proving to be just as popular as its ancestor. The ID.Buzz and ID.Buzz Cargo has garnered >7.6 billion online impressions worldwide and +208% of ID.Family showroom website visits globally. In September, VW reported that it received 12,500 ID.Buzz orders since pre-sales started. 

“And that’s without any of the customers even seeing or touching the vehicle at the dealership or even being able to drive it. That’s quite amazing. And about half of the pre-orders, more than 6,000, are for the ID Buzz Cargo,” said Volkswagen Nutzfahrzeuge (VWN) CEO Carsten Intra.

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The German automaker is thinking of expanding ID.Buzz production due to the interest it is getting form potential customers. 

The Teslarati team would appreciate hearing from you. If you have any tips, contact me at maria@teslarati.com or via Twitter @Writer_01001101.

Maria--aka "M"-- is an experienced writer and book editor. She's written about several topics including health, tech, and politics. As a book editor, she's worked with authors who write Sci-Fi, Romance, and Dark Fantasy. M loves hearing from TESLARATI readers. If you have any tips or article ideas, contact her at maria@teslarati.com or via X, @Writer_01001101.

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Tesla to make app change for easier communication following Service

“Looking into it. After a service visit is complete, we close the in-app messaging option after 2 hours. We will change this to 24hours or more.”

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla will enhance the ability to communicate through the mobile app with Service after work has been done on your car.

One of the biggest weaknesses of Tesla’s automotive division has been Service, as Service Centers are not necessarily plentiful, and wait times, in some regions of the country, are over a month in duration.

Getting in touch with Service after a car has work done to it is also difficult. Calling showrooms in some regions has proven to be difficult to enable direct communication between the customer and the company.

If something is not resolved properly, Tesla keeps the in-app messaging option active for two hours after the service visit is complete.

However, that doesn’t resolve everything, as some issues may arise again more than two hours later. Then the issue of communication presents itself once again.

Tesla is going to extend that time frame to a day or more, according to Raj Jegannathan, Tesla’s AI/IT-Infra, Cybersecurity, IT Apps & Vehicle Service VP.

Tesla has made several changes over the past few years to attempt to improve its Service. Recently, for Collision repair, it started offering a $45-per-day loaner program with free FSD, free tolls, and free Supercharging.

It also recently started sharing local and regional leader contact information so customers have the ability to reach out when they have complaints or disagree with warranty claims, changes in estimates, or initial diagnostics.

Tesla creates clever solution to simplify and improve its Service

However, this is only available at a few showrooms and is currently a pilot program.

These improvements are aimed at resolving communication breakdown, which appears to be a problem that many owners experience.

Tesla is one of the few companies that also operates a fleet of Mobile Repair vehicles, which will perform service at your house or place of business. However, the size of it has gone down by 11 percent year over year.

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Tesla is overhauling its Full Self-Driving subscription for easier access

The subscription model is more accessible to many owners, as it is reasonably priced and offers the option to take a month off from using it if they are interested in saving money.

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla is overhauling its Full Self-Driving subscription and how it markets it to customers after several owners and fans of the company complained about the accessibility of the monthly access to its driver assistance suite.

Tesla Full Self-Driving is the automaker’s semi-autonomous driving suite, which is widely regarded as the most robust and capable on the market today. Owners can purchase the suite outright for $8,000, or they can subscribe to the program for $99 per month, an option it enabled a few years ago.

However, it is not super easy to subscribe to the subscription model, nor is it even recognized on the company’s Online Design Studio. Without some research or prior knowledge, a consumer might not even know they could pay monthly to experience Full Self-Driving.

That is set to change, according to Tesla’s AI/IT Infrastructure, Cybersecurity, IT Apps, and Vehicle Service head Raj Jegannathan, who said the company is planning to change that.

Instead of having customers only have the option to pay outright for the suite, Tesla is now planning to offer the subscription model in its Online Design Studio, making it easier to activate that option:

It will be the second major change Tesla makes to how it sells Full Self-Driving to customers, the first being videos of real-life operation of FSD in the Design Studio. Previously, the site only showed animations of Full Self-Driving’s capabilities.

Tesla added the videos of FSD handling some tricky situations, as well as general operation of the suite, to the Design Studio in recent weeks.

Tesla makes big change to encourage Full Self-Driving purchases

The subscription model is more accessible to many owners, as it is reasonably priced and offers the option to take a month off from using it if they are interested in saving money.

Many cannot justify paying for the suite outright, especially as it adds $8,000 to the cost of their car. After they experience its capabilities for themselves, they might.

Both moves appear to be an effort to increase the take rate of Full Self-Driving, particularly as autonomy takes center stage at Tesla.

With the rollout of Robotaxi and some teased capabilities of the upcoming v14 iteration of Full Self-Driving, Tesla is gearing up to continue advancing its self-driving technology.

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Tesla talks Semi ramp, Optimus, Robotaxi rollout, FSD with Wall Street firm

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) recently talked about a variety of topics with Wall Street firm Piper Sandler, as the firm released a new note on Friday about their meeting with the company’s Investor Relations team.

According to the note from Piper Sandler, Tesla talked in detail about the Semi program, Optimus, and its potential valuation given its capabilities, the rollout of Robotaxi in Austin, and Full Self-Driving progress in the United States.

Tesla Semi Ramp

The Tesla Semi is set to enter mass production in 2026 at a dedicated factory near the company’s Gigafactory in Reno, Nevada.

The Semi has already been in pilot program testing, as Tesla has partnered with a few companies, like Frito-Lay and PepsiCo., to perform regional logistics. It has been met with excellent reviews from drivers, and it has helped give Tesla a good idea of what to expect when it makes its way to more companies in the coming years.

Piper Sandler said that it is evident Tesla is preparing for a “major ramp,” but it is keeping its expectations low:

“We’ve never expected much from this product, but we’d love to be proven wrong (Tesla is clearly prepping for a major ramp).”

Tesla Optimus and its value internally and externally

Optimus has been working in Tesla factories for some time, but its expectations as a product offering outside of the company internally have major implications.

Its role within Tesla factories, for now, is relatively low, but Optimus is still doing things to assist. By this time next year, Piper Sandler said Optimus should have bigger responsibilities:

“By this time in 2026, Optimus should be moving/staging parts within Tesla’s facilities.”

Outside of Tesla, Optimus could be a major beneficiary for companies as it could be a more affordable way to handle tedious tasks and manual labor. The firm believes that if Optimus can work 18-hour shifts, a cost of $100,000 per unit “would be justified.”

Tesla Robotaxi Expansion

The big focus of the firm with Robotaxi was Tesla’s expansion of the geofence in Austin this week. It was substantial, bringing the Robotaxi’s total service area to around 170 square miles, up from the roughly 90 square miles that rival Waymo is offering in the city.

Tesla Robotaxi geofence expansion enters Plaid Mode and includes a surprise

Tesla has doubled its geofence three times since its launch in late June, and it also revealed that its fleet of vehicles has expanded by 50 percent. It did not give a solid number of how many vehicles are operating in the fleet.

Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 launch

Tesla’s Full Self-Driving suite is set to have a fresh version, v14, rolled out in either September or October, and there are some pretty high expectations for it.

CEO Elon Musk said:

“The FSD release in about 6 weeks will be a dramatic gain with a 10X higher parameter count and many other improvements. It’s going through training & testing now. Once we confirm real-world safety of FSD 14, which we think will be amazing, the car will nag you much less.”

There is also some expectation that v14 could be the public release of what Tesla is running in Austin for Robotaxi. The firm confirmed this in their note by stating it “should enable Tesla owners to use software that is on par with Robotaxis in Austin.”

The only real hold up would be regulator skepticism, but Tesla can alleviate this with strong data.

The firm maintained its ‘Overweight’ rating and the $400 price target it holds on the stock.

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