Tell you what, I like a road trip that answers a real question. And this one answers a big one: can an electric van built mostly for grocery runs and suburban carpools handle a lap around the whole United States? A fellow just finished 8,222 miles in his all-wheel-drive VW ID. Buzz, and the story over at MSN lays out how it went.

The short version is it went fine. Better than fine, actually. The ID. Buzz is not a fast machine and it's not a long-legged highway cruiser the way my diesel is, but that's not what this trip was about. Eight thousand miles means interstates, two-lanes, mountain passes, desert stretches where the nearest charger is a coin flip, and small towns where the diner coffee is still a dollar. You don't fake your way through that in any vehicle.

What strikes me is the pacing. An EV like the Buzz forces a rhythm that old-timers from the station wagon days would recognize. You stop every couple hundred miles, you plug in, you walk around, you talk to whoever's there. My daddy called that having a loose schedule. We just call it charging time now. There are worse ways to see the country than being made to get out of the truck four times a day whether you want to or not.

The all-wheel-drive version matters here too. The standard Buzz is front-drive, and I'd have questions about taking that through mountain weather on a loop this big. The dual-motor setup gives you the grip for passes and rain and whatever else an American circuit throws at you between coasts. It's still not a rig I'd take down a Ozark jeep trail, but that was never the job.

Now, I've said before I want a truck I can fix with a socket set twenty miles from pavement, and an EV doesn't fit that bill for me yet. But I can appreciate what this guy did. He didn't baby the thing around a state. He put a full country under the tires and it held up, and whether a thing holds up is the only standard I've ever cared about. Looks like this one did.

The charging network is the real hero of any trip like this, and that's the part that's changed in the last few years. Routes that would've been a gamble in 2020 are just drivable now. Not perfect everywhere, sure. I reckon there are still stretches out West where you're planning your stops like a man planning a float trip around low water. But an 8,000-mile loop without a tow truck story attached tells you the infrastructure finally grew into the promise.

If you've been eyeballing a Buzz and wondering if it's a real vehicle or just a nostalgic toy with a battery, this is decent evidence it's real. My upcoming fall run through the Ozarks will stay behind a diesel engine, that's certain. But I'll admit the idea of a slow, boxy van that makes you stop and stretch now and then isn't the worst way to cross a country. Some of you already knew that. The rest will figure it out around mile six thousand.