A production Volkswagen ID.Buzz finished a 99,767-kilometre, 92-country loop and returned to Hanover without a single technical breakdown, giving the van a rare, independently verified demonstration of endurance.
Long-distance driver Rainer Zietlow set off from Hanover on July 1, 2025 and completed the route on September 14, 2026, a 445-day journey that crossed six continents and covered 62,036 miles. Guinness World Records certified the trip at IAA Transportation 2026 as the record for most countries visited in a continuous journey by a battery-powered electric vehicle, and Zietlow received the certificate from a Guinness representative.
The record car was a stock ID.Buzz Pro with the long wheelbase and an 86-kWh net battery. Volkswagen says the van made more than 300 charging stops and crossed oceans 16 times by container ship. TÜV Nord inspected the vehicle before departure and again on return, certifying the high-voltage battery at 95.75 percent state of health after the nearly 100,000-kilometre tour.
Zietlow highlighted the lack of mechanical faults as the trip’s most important outcome. "I had no technical problems. For me, that is the decisive point," he said at IAA Transportation. He also noted that, compared with diesel vehicles, the ID.Buzz avoided risks such as fuel contamination and overheating that can complicate remote travel.
The trip threw the spotlight on charging infrastructure as the main constraint. Zietlow said, "In countries such as Zambia or Tanzania, there was simply nothing available," and that in some places he had to charge at national substations under supervision. He praised markets where networks are already workable, naming South Africa, Morocco, and Rwanda, and said Saudi Arabia has developed rapidly. He called China "in a league of its own," described the global picture as "very mixed," and said faster batteries and hyper-charging would expand what is possible.
Volkswagen also reported that global ID.Buzz sales doubled in 2025. The tour closes with a clear technical metric from TÜV Nord and a public record from Guinness, and it frames the remaining barrier for global EV travel as access to charging rather than vehicle reliability.
