Toyota Corolla vs Volkswagen ID. Buzz

What's the difference?

The final score for this review makes it look as though the Corolla is a middling effort. The scores for each individual section of the review are well considered and fair. The Corolla does lack the practicality of some of its rivals. A lack of an ANCAP rating isn’t great and the powertrain is just okay. But it remains one of the most fun-to-drive hatchbacks on the market today, even seven years into its life, and I would wholeheartedly recommend the Corolla to anyone looking for a small car. If you can forgive some of the quirks, it is a reliable, adorable, fun and efficient small car favourite. 

The only way to make this car cooler would be to add a split fold-out windscreen and a tube steel luggage rack on the roof.

It’s fast, super practical, comfortable and guaranteed to put a smile on the face of premium family buyers ready to go for something different. And that smile will extend to just about everyone who lays eyes on it. I love it.

Note: CarsGuide attended this event as a guest of the manufacturer, with travel, accommodation and meals provided.

It’s been around for a good seven years, but the current-gen Corolla hatch is still a smart design. It has a squat stance and looks as though it has sporty intentions (it doesn’t), and the head and tail-light treatment doesn’t look like anything else in the segment.

The Corolla has adorable proportions and a pert little behind in a sea of increasingly boring small SUVs.

However, in SX trim and in the ‘Sunstone Orange’ body colour of my test car, the Corolla gives off rental car vibes. Which is hardly surprising given lower grade Corollas are a favourite of rental companies.

Inside that vibe continues. This is where the Corolla is really showing its age.

There are various shades of grey throughout the cabin, with a mix of hard and soft plastics. The cloth seat trim is drab, which is a shame because some other brands have managed to make cloth cool again. Not Toyota.

The touchscreen sticks up out the top of the dash like an old iPad and the dash design is old but functional. 

There is nothing inspiring about this interior design. In saying that, of those aforementioned rivals, only the Mazda3 and the new Kia K4 have modern cabins.

The ID.Buzz GTX is characterised by a unique front bumper with new integrated daytime running lights near its outer edges and a narrower black honeycomb grille. 

GTX badging and the exterior mirror housings are finished in high-gloss black, and 21-inch alloy wheels are standard.

The rich ‘Cherry Red’ solid paint finish of the launch test car is exclusive to the GTX and it’s a fair bet many buyers will stump up the extra $4K required for a two-tone treatment, in this case with ‘Mono Silver’ as the highlight colour.

The interior is familiar ID.Buzz territory, with the long, broad dashtop pushing the windscreen and small front windows beside it into a quintessentially Kombi ‘bay window’-style design.

A 12-inch central multimedia screen sits proud of the multi-layered dash, and a slick 5.3-inch LCD instrument and car data display is fixed in front of the driver.

A black headliner dials up the sporty feel, the electric front seats are a GTX-specific design and the synthetic diamond pattern microfleece trim is highlighted by red contrast stitching and piping. 

The red cross-stitching extends to the steering wheel and smile-inducing stainless steel ‘play’ and ‘pause’ symbols on the accelerator and brake pedals are retained.

The sub-zero cool exterior design manages to merge with a more restrained and practical interior perfectly. VW has solid retro form with the ‘New Beetle’ from the 1990s and this primo ID.Buzz looks amazing. It drew an instant crowd of curious onlookers every time we stopped. 

The Corolla is a small car and that is evident inside. You might bump elbows with your front passenger, but I have no problem with the front leg or headroom.

Those cloth seats might be drab but boy they are comfy, and the fronts have loads of side bolstering. 

The steering wheel has typically clear controls and looks and feels nice. 

As a more, shall we say seasoned model in the segment, the Corolla still has buttons on the dash for things like air con, but not too many. That bulbous centre stack and the centre console, however, could be better designed for the space.

As it is, the wireless charging pad is hidden under it at the far end of the console. It’s a bit fiddly to get your phone in and out. This is also where one of the USB-C ports lives.

The other one is in the central storage bin which is quite small, but also houses a 12-volt outlet. There are no other places to store things because of the rounded shape of the console, which also features a couple of narrow cupholders.

OurCarsGuide bottle had to be squeezed into the door storage cavity - only narrow, short vessels will fit properly.

That 8.0-inch multimedia screen is very easy to navigate, with logical menus and icons. However, it’s almost too basic, which is not helped by the all-white background. It could be a more engaging set-up but it’s also very hard to fault the functionality. Our Apple CarPlay maintained its connection the whole time with the car, too.

Space is quite tight in the rear, although I have enough headroom for my 184cm frame. Legroom is just okay behind my driving position. There’s more space in the back of a Hyundai i30. It’s also dark because of smallish rear windows and thick C-pillars. 

The rear seat backrest is quite upright, but, like the front seats, well cushioned.

Amenities are just average back there - there’s a weird cupholder high on the door, only a passenger side map pocket, no rear air vents and no USB ports, although you could easily use the one housed in the front central bin. There’s a rear fold-down armrest with two cupholders.

The rear seats split and fold 60/40 and they fold flat making for a better loading space.

The good news is the SX (and the base Ascent Sport) come standard with a temporary spare wheel, which is great news for a hybrid model. The bad news is, that reduces boot space to a paltry 217 litres. 

That’s off the pace of all of its key hatchback rivals, including the Mazda3 which has its own cargo concerns at 295L, and the Hyundai i30 with 395L.

The Corolla ZR hatch has more space at 333L but you only get a tyre repair kit instead of a temporary spare. 

If you’re dead set on a Corolla but need more cargo space, consider the smart looking sedan that has 470 litres.

The ID.Buzz GTX is offered in shorter wheelbase variants with five- and six-seat configurations for other markets, but here it’s seven seats and long-wheelbase only.

At close to five metres long and just under two metres wide, it’s road-trip ready with heaps of breathing room for all seven occupants.

Placement of the gearshift on the right-hand side of the steering column frees up extra space in the front and there’s heaps of storage including a moveable (and removable) centre console unit between the front seats with pull-out drawers at either end, two trays in each door (the lower one offering room for multiple large bottles), a decent glove box and a fold-out dual cupholder unit.

There’s also an oddments shelf in front of the passenger, a wireless device charging slot in the dash and adjustable fold-down armrests on both sides of the front seats.

Pull the handle on the power-opening sliding side doors and the second row opens up with three seating positions offering hectares of room in all directions. 

This row can be moved 200mm longitudinally if a turf war erupts with those in the third row. And storage is great with two pockets and a fold out table on each front seatback as well as huge door bins with waste baskets included. There are also adjustable vents with temperature control in the roof.

There’s enough head and legroom for adults in the third row although the backrest is relatively upright. Even access is straightforward and there are numerous storage trays, cupholders, air vents and storage slots back there.

Power across the cabin runs to two USB-C ports in the dash, another in the front passenger area and four USB-C charging sockets in the rear.

Boot space increases from a handy 306 litres with all seats up to 1340 litres with the 50/50 split-folding third row down, and 2469L with it and the 60/40 split second row lowered. That’s plenty.

And that 1.6-tonne braked trailer towing capacity means a jet ski, even a mid-size camper trailer, is within hauling range.

The power tailgate is welcome and the rear of the boot’s load platform sits above two storage boxes. But you won’t find a spare of any description back there; a repair-inflator kit is your only option. So beware, a flat could really suck the air out of this mobile family room.

The new ID.Buzz GTX 4Motion is priced at $109,990, before on-road costs, which puts it in the same price zone as a diverse range of large, primo people haulers.

On price, it competes with three-row EVs like the Kia EV9, LDV Mifa 9, and if you stretch the price equation a little further, the Zeekr 009. But in terms of style and personality, this machine lives in a world of its own.

Maybe its VW California Beach sibling comes closest, however that van’s traditional turbo-diesel powertrain stands in stark contrast to the ID.Buzz’s pure-electric vibe.

Once you’ve crested the $100K mark, it’s fair to expect a healthy list of included features and the ID.Buzz GTX doesn’t disappoint.

Aside from the performance and safety tech we’ll get to shortly, the highlights include adaptive cruise control, auto LED matrix headlights, 13-speaker (plus sub-woofer) Harman Kardon audio with digital radio, wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, three-zone climate control, a panoramic (dimmable) glass roof, 30-colour ambient lighting, power-adjustable heated front seats, heated (outer) rear seats and 21-inch alloy rims. 

There’s also a head-up display, a heated steering wheel, rain-sensing wipers, microfleece seat trim, keyless entry and start, electric side doors and tailgate (the latter with hands-free functionality), ‘Ask IDA’ voice control and dark tinted windows.

That’s a strong, class-competitive value equation. Metallic or pearl effect paint will set you back $1890, the two-tone treatment is $4090 and black 21-inch alloys add $380.

Since Toyota dropped the petrol engine from the Corolla range, it’s a hybrid-only affair.

The powerplant is a 1.8-litre naturally aspirated petrol engine paired with Toyota’s fifth-generation hybrid system that incorporates a lithium-ion battery, which is lighter yet more powerful since the 2022 update.

The Corolla drives the front wheels exclusively via a continuously variable transmission (CVT).

It’s not the punchiest engine and could do with more poke, but Toyota does do hybrids well. 

The GTX is a twin-motor AWD, the front unit generating 80kW/134Nm and the rear 210kW/560Nm. Total output is 250kW/590Nm which boosts towing capacity from 1.0-tonne in the single-motor ID.Buzz to 1600kg.

A single-speed transmission sends drive primarily to the rear wheels to maximise efficiency, the dual-motor set-up able to direct power to the front axle as required during acceleration or to manage available traction.

According to Toyota the official fuel-use figure for the Corolla hybrid hatch is 4.0-litres per 100 kilometres and CO2 emissions sit at 90g/km.

While the trip computer said 4.8L/100km at the end of our week, my own fuel consumption calculation came to 5.8L.

You will only need 91 RON 'standard' petrol to fill up the Corolla.

The ID.Buzz GTX’s 86kWh lithium-ion battery delivers a claimed (WLTP) range of 473km and the car uses a CCS Type 3 socket. VW includes a Mode 2 and Mode 3 cable as standard.

The claimed 10-80 per cent 200kW DC fast charge time is 26 minutes, while the same top-up takes nine hours at a maximum 11.0kW AC capacity.

Claimed energy consumption on the combined (urban/extra-urban) cycle is 20.2kWh/100km (WLTP) and over several hundred kilometres of mainly B-road and freeway running on the launch we saw an average of 24.5kWh/100km, which isn’t out of order given the type of driving involved.

Most generations of Corollas have been solid, dependable and occasionally, even fun to drive. 

My first car was a Holden Nova GS hatchback, which was a rebadged version of the seventh-generation Corolla. I loved that car. It was zippy, fun and super economical.

The same principles generally apply to the current-gen Corolla. Thankfully, Toyota’s former CEO, Akio Toyoda, insisted all models from the Camry to the Kluger needed to be injected with more fun. And he succeeded with the Corolla. So much so that they've spun off a wild GR performance hot hatch version.

The Corolla sits low to the ground and it just feels much more connected to the road than a small SUV can. Even in mid-range SX guise, the Corolla can hug a corner and there is ample grip to ensure a fun drive on your favourite winding road.

Sure, the hybrid powertrain might not set your heart racing, but it is quick enough from a standing start and it lacks the lag of some of its turbocharged contemporaries. There’s also plenty of poke on tap for a small car when overtaking.

Even though it has a sporting edge to how it handles, the Corolla SX has been tuned for comfort first and foremost and this is another area it excels. The damper set-up ensures the Corolla soaks up speed bumps, nasty potholes and whatever else our shoddy roads can throw at it. At no point in my seven days with the Corolla did I complain about a harsh bump or thud.

Steering has a mechanical feel but it is still sharp, adding to the ‘chuckable’ vibe of this hatchback.

The powertrain can be noisy when pushed and combined with a CVT auto it’s the nicest sounding engine out there. Also, the transition from electric to petrol power isn’t particularly smooth. Other carmaker’s hybrid offerings - like Honda for example - are close to seamless. 

Some road noise gets into the cabin but it’s no deal breaker.

Despite the fact that it weighs in at around 2.8 tonnes (2780kg), Volkswagen Australia says this dual-motor ID.Buzz accelerates from 0-100km/h in 6.4 seconds and on to a 160km/h maximum velocity, if you dare. 

And there is always some serious oomph lurking under your right foot. Trundle along at 65km/h, pin the accelerator, and in roughly two blinks of an eye you’re doing 95km/h. 

Proportionally, this car is like a loaf of bread on wheels - about as high as it is wide. And on the windy launch drive we were buffeted a bit, the car moving sideways slightly when hit with a gust. But overall, it remains stable despite its proportions. That said, some wind noise comes over the bluff nose on the freeway, but never to an alarming degree. 

The ID. Buzz rides on VW’s Modular Electric Drive (MEB) platform and there’s been past criticism of the short-wheelbase versions' ride quality, but there are no such issues here.

Suspension is by struts at the front and semi-trailing arms at the rear and this GTX has had a suspension retune with particular attention paid to key components, including the dampers.

On rural roads that have seen better days, dotted with potholes, bumps and thumps, a combination of that suspension retune and the longer wheelbase helped the GTX handle it well. 

There are five drive modes with Comfort the default. Eco smooths out acceleration, tapers the climate control and reduces overall power, while Sport dials up the powertrain, suspension and steering. Traction optimises the AWD system for loose or slippery surfaces and Individual allows you to cherry pick various attributes for a custom set-up.

Steering is progressive rate and you can feel it loading up nicely as you head into a corner. Not the last word in terms of road feel, but the car points accurately and turn-in is nice and progressive.

At the same time you’ve got the electric motors constantly shuffling drive between the front and rear axles, helping you out if you decide to explore the car’s sporty nature and have a crack in the corners.

Tyres are Hankook Ventus S1 Evo3 EV specials (235/45 fr - 265/40 rr) and in long, sweeping bends, taken at pretty decent speed, they grip hard. Even on coarse-chip B-road surfaces there’s a bit of rumble but it’s far from a roar.

Braking is by large (358mm) ventilated discs in the front and, believe it or not, drums at the back. A well-designed, modern drum brake can work effectively and the regenerative braking in an EV like this is a big factor in terms of washing off speed.

In terms of lower speed manoeuvres, you’ve got a 360-degree camera view as well as a reversing camera and front and rear parking sensors. If you really need some help, Park Assist Plus will get the job done for you.

In terms of ergonomics, we spent hours behind the wheel and the front seats remained comfortable and supportive in terms of lateral grip.

Speaking of grip, the steering wheel is nice to hold. And the cool little 5.3-inch instrument and car data display is clear as a bell, and the large 12-inch media screen is easy to use and working through the different screens is largely intuitive.

The current ID. Buzz range hasn’t been assessed by ANCAP although its sister organisation, Euro NCAP, awarded it a maximum five-star rating in 2022.

As you’d expect, a full suite of driver-assistance tech is onboard including highway-speed AEB with pedestrian and cyclist monitoring, adaptive cruise, lane-keeping assist, lane-change assist, blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert, driver fatigue monitoring and tyre pressure monitoring.  

There’s also a 360-degree view and reversing camera, plus Park Distance Control incorporating front and rear proximity sensors.

The airbag count runs to seven - front, front side, curtains covering the second and third rows, as well as a front centre bag. And multi-collision brake minimises the chances of subsequent impacts after an initial crash

There are five top tethers for child restraints; three across the second row and two in the back row, with four ISOFIX anchors across both rows.

The Corolla is covered by Toyota’s five-year/unlimited kilometre warranty, which, given Kia, MG, GWM, Jaecoo and more have longer terms (not to mention Nissan and Mitsubishi’s conditional 10-year terms) is now officially trailing its competitors.

However, the capped-price servicing plan of up to five years costs just $250 for each service, which is incredibly competitive. The service schedule is every 12 months or 15,000km, whichever occurs first.

The ID.Buzz GTX is covered by Volkswagen Australia’s five-year/unlimited-km warranty with two years’ roadside assistance included. On top of that, there’s an eight-year/160,000km warranty on the drive battery.

That general warranty is in line with the mainstream market, although it’s worth noting an increasing number are stepping up to longer terms, including 10 years.  

There’s a 12-year corrosion perforation warranty and keep servicing with an authorised VW dealer and that roadside assistance support will be rolled over for another two years each time.

The recommended maintenance interval is two years/30,000km. Standard scheduled service pricing is $687 for each of the first five workshop visits, while pre-paid plans covering six, eight or 10 years represent savings of between 30 and 35 per cent on that figure, which is pretty handy.