One of the best podcasts on earth is Heavyweight, where a guy named Jonathan helps people solve incredibly personal, difficult lifelong problems. He does it with a staff of researchers, a tenacious need to help others, and ample time to truly get to the bottom of an answer. There are so many great episodes it's hard to pick one, so if you've never heard it before, I'd say start from the beginning and enjoy one a day until you're all caught up. They're poignant but also funny and light-hearted, and ultimately satisfying when the team solves a thorny issue.

The most recent episode is completely different and made me think for the first time that a podcast episode should be considered for a Pulitzer award in journalism someday.

Minneapolis | Heavyweight

In part one, Jonathan and his wife, Emily, check in. In part two, the story of a family forced into hiding after an ICE shooting.

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The first part paints a picture of how Minneapolis sounds and feels from the perspective of Jonathan's wife. I'm guessing she started recording audio on her phone whenever a bunch of black SUVs crossed her path over several weeks, but hearing the sheer terror of people screaming, flash bangs, teargas being deployed on civilians, and the warning whistles to alert neighbors of ICE hit me like no newspaper story ever could.

It's harrowing and horrible and was extremely difficult to listen to.

The back half of the episode covers a family with asylum status in the US, and how a father was shot in his own home by ICE. It includes actual audio of the raid where thugs break a door down and everyone scrambles for their lives before a couple family members are taken away.

The most shocking part of that story is the family fled horrible conditions in Venezuela to live a better life for them and their children in America, and this is what America in Minneapolis has become for those fleeing violence from other countries.

Again, the full episode is hard to listen to, but completely worth your time.

Sean Hollister, reporting for The Verge back in February:

Two weeks ago, we exclusively reported Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s remarks on how many pairs of Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses the company had recently sold and might theoretically sell: 1 million pairs in 2024, with the possibility of reaching 2 million or even 5 million by the end of 2025.

But glasses giant EssilorLuxottica, which produces those glasses for Meta, has now publicly revealed 2 million pairs of Meta Ray-Bans have sold since their October 2023 debut, and that it’s aiming to produce 10 million Meta glasses each year by the end of 2026.

I mocked a report from Counterpoint Research this week for its Bezos Numbers on smart glasses sales growth. Here are some real numbers from the current market leader. For context, Steve Jobs’s stated goal for the iPhone, at launch in mid-2007, was 10 million iPhones sold by the end of 2008 — a goal they reached before the holiday quarter of 2008 even started.

I feel close to certain that smart glasses are going to be a big product category. But they’re not there yet. A few million units is something, but it’s not a hit. Given the current capabilities — a camera on your face, speakers on the temples, and a microphone for talking to the system — I don’t see how they currently beat a smartphone and wireless earbuds. If you already carry a phone and earbuds everywhere you go, when would you want Meta Glasses? For taking lower-quality photos and videos, and listening to lower-quality audio? I don’t think the product category is going to take off until there’s a visual HUD in the lenses, and that still seems years away, at any price.

If you had asked me a few years ago, I would have told you that the review you're about to read would be one of the most-read car reviews of the year. For a while—quite a long while, in fact—the Volkswagen ID Buzz was the hottest electric vehicle you couldn't buy. Starting in 2001, VW began teasing concept after concept that called back to its various Transporters and Kombis, classic microbuses reimagined as modern minivans. When the electric Buzz was greenlit for production after wowing crowds in 2017, it caught the attention of the kind of people who don't normally care about such things. Early coverage of the Buzz showed plenty of interest, and it looked like VW might have a real hit on its hands.

At least, that's how things looked for the first couple of years. It actually took seven years for a version of the ID Buzz to go on sale in North America, two years after Europe. Much of the optimism about EV adoption has now gone. Rather than reaching price parity with regular cars as battery prices dropped, everything just got more expensive during the pandemic. Add in recent worries about import tariffs and clean vehicle tax credits (available if you lease), and you start to understand why they remain a rare sight on the roads. Expect stares, glances, and even people taking out their phones as you drive past.

Some of the wait was for VW's more powerful rear drive unit, which provides this 2025 ID Buzz Pro S Plus with 282 hp (210 kW) and 413 lb-ft (560 Nm), paired with a 91 kWh battery pack. The official EPA range is 234 miles, which sounds disappointingly low, but it's correct. It does seem like a very conservative estimate based on a week with the Buzz. 3.1 miles/kWh (20 kWh 100/km) was possible if I drove carefully, with high-twos possible when I didn't, and with 89 percent state of charge in the battery, the Buzz's onboard brain figured we had 255 miles (410 km) of range.

The fast charging stats are acceptable for a 400 V powertrain. VW quotes 30-minute fast-charging from 10 to 80 percent, with the battery able to accept peak rates of 170 kW. In practice, I plugged in with 35 percent SoC and reached 80 percent after 21 minutes. Meanwhile, a full AC charge should take 7.5 hours.

You want plenty of space in a minivan, and there's a huge amount here. In the US, we only get a three-row version of the Buzz, which offers features that the two-row, Euro-only version can't, like air vents and opening windows in the back. There are also a plethora of USB-C ports. You sit up high, with an H-point (where your hip goes) that's a few inches above that of other minivan drivers.

One of the downsides of that large battery is the extra height it adds to the Buzz, although a tight turning circle and light steering mean it's never a chore to drive. However, getting in could be a little simpler for people on the smaller end of the spectrum if there were grab handles or running boards.

The width shouldn't prove a problem, given the number of commercial Buzzes you now see working as delivery vans or work trucks in Europe these days. The bluff front and large frontal area may also explain the wind noise at highway speeds, although that can easily be drowned out by the sound system (or two rows of children, perhaps). Driving slowly, and therefore efficiently, is made simpler by the lack of side bolstering of the seats and that high H-point that magnifies any amount of roll when cornering.

Both middle and third row are viable places to put fully grown adults, even for long drives. The specs actually give the third row the edge, with 42.4 inches (1,077 mm) of legroom versus 39.9 inches (1,014 mm) for the middle row, and VW had to issue a recall because the rear bench is slightly wider than federal rules allow if you only have two seatbelts.

Neither middle nor third row is removable, as in conventional minivans. Instead, the seats can be folded flat; the middle row splits 60:40, the third row 50:50. There's up to 145.5 cubic feet (4,106 L) of cargo volume with both rows folded flat. With just the third row flat, you still have 75.5 cubic feet (2,138 L), or 18.6 cubic feet (526.7 L) with the third row in use. The center console, with its various cubbies and slide-outs, is removable, which also helps boost the sense of interior volume.

Although VW did well in keeping the three-row, big battery Buzz close in price to the Euro two-row, a starting price of $59,995 is still more expensive than the minivans you can buy from Kia, Honda, or Chrysler, and our test Buzz had a sticker price of $66,040 with options ($995 for the two-tone paint) and destination charge ($1,550). It comes with a high level of standard equipment for the money, both in terms of active and passive safety tech and in conveniences like wireless charging, remote door opening, a heads-up display, and so on. And the "Copper" interior is a brighter alternative to black but still far more sensible for a minivan than the white of the launch edition.

The ID Buzz's price premium over the three other minivans you can buy in the US is mostly due to its electric powertrain, which means that someone looking for an EV minivan has no other real choices. But it looks good, and I'm confident in saying the Buzz has a more cavernous third row than any of the non-EV alternatives.

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