A Volkswagen ID Buzz has set the official Guinness World Record for the “most countries visited in a continuous journey by a battery-powered electric vehicle”, covering 92 countries and almost 62,000 miles.
Long-distance driver Rainer Zietlow began the journey on July 1, 2025, at the Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles Customer Centre in Hanover, Germany, where Volkswagen makes the ID Buzz. The route then took the car and driver across South Africa, Morocco, and Rwanda, then to Brazil, Chile, Saudi Arabia, and China.
Over 445 days and 99,767 kilometres (61,992 miles), Zietlow visited 92 countries across six continents and undertook 16 sea crossings to complete the trip.
On the road in China (Image: Volkswagen Newsroom)
During the journey, the ID Buzz underwent more than 300 charging cycles, and when Zietlow returned to the Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles Customer Centre, vehicle testing body, TÜV Nord, issued the ID Buzz’s 86kW battery with a 95.75% state of health certificate.
Upon coming back to Hanover on September 14, 2026, Zietlow told Volkswagen in an interview that while his experience of using global public charging infrastructure was “mixed”, he has a generally positive outlook on its trajectory.
“In parts of Africa there is virtually no charging infrastructure – in countries such as Zambia or Tanzania there was simply nothing available, so I charged at national substations under supervision,” he continued. “South Africa, Morocco and Rwanda, by contrast, already work well.
In Zambia (Image: Volkswagen Newsroom)
Zietlow added that while long-distance EV driving requires an element of route planning to account for charging stops, the fact that an EV has fewer moving parts than an internal combustion-engined car makes it a more reliable travel companion. Over the course of the 14 months on the road, Zietlow experienced no technical problems.
“On a trip like this, the difference between a combustion engine and an electric vehicle is noticeable,” he explained. “In many parts of the world, diesel fuel can contain high sulphur levels or water contamination, several oil changes are required, and there is also the risk of the engine overheating – all of that is eliminated with an electric vehicle. Of course, you have to charge and clarify the availability of charging points in advance. But if you take that into account, you are better off with an electric car.”
At large in Thailand (Image: Volkswagen Newsroom)
Looking ahead, Zietlow feels that “the combustion engine will be to us what the horse-drawn carriage once was”. He adds: “The world is becoming increasingly accessible for electric mobility – the gap to the combustion engine is getting smaller. If the solid-state battery arrives at some point, along with very fast hyper-charging, then a great deal more will be possible.”
