ID parade

As important as the Beetle? Two days with Volkswagen’s electric ID.4

It’s a competent but not flashy crossover with a real-world range of 250 miles.

Jonathan M. Gitlin – Feb 27, 2021 4:45 pm | 400

Volkswagen says the ID.4 is as important to the company's future as the Beetle was to its past. Credit: Jonathan Gitlin

The Volkswagen ID.4 is a big deal for its manufacturer. After getting busted six years ago for fibbing about diesel emissions, VW underwent a corporate transformation, throwing all its chips into electrification. As a big believer in modular architectures that it can use to build a wide range of vehicles from a common set of parts, it got to work on a new architecture just for battery electric vehicles, called MEB (Modularer E-Antriebs-Baukasten or Modular Electrification Toolkit).

Since then, we’ve seen a dizzying array of MEB-based concepts, including that electric bus that everyone wants, and even a bright green buggy. But the ID.4 is no mere concept. It’s the first production MEB vehicle to go on sale here in the US, designed with the crossover-crazy US market firmly in mind. Last September we got our first good look at the ID.4 under studio lights in Brooklyn, and a month later, Ars got to spend 45 minutes on the road with a pre-production ID.4. But now we’ve had two full days in a model year 2021 ID.4 1st Edition, getting to know it on local turf.

Volumetrically, it’s about the same size as a Toyota RAV4 or VW Tiguan: 181 inches (4,585 mm) long, 73 inches wide (1,852 mm), and 64 inches tall (1,637 mm), with a 109-inch (2,766 mm) wheelbase. Depending on the angle, it can be quite a handsome shape. That’s helped by the way the 1st Edition’s aerodynamic 20-inch alloy wheels fill their arches, helping convince the brain that the car is smaller than it actually is, as well as the designer’s trick of making bits disappear by cladding them in glossy black panels.

At a measurement of 0.28, the ID.4’s drag coefficient would be considered very slippery just a few years ago. VW says it could have lowered that figure by making it a fastback (like the Audi e-tron Sportback or MEB-based e-tron Q Sportback), but that would have compromised rear headroom and cargo capacity.

For now, all ID.4s have the same powertrain configuration. A twin-motor, all-wheel-drive option arrives in late summer, but the $43,995 1st edition, the $39,995 ID.4, and the $44,495 ID.4 Pro S are all rear-wheel drive, with a single 150 kW (201 hp), 310 Nm (229 lb-ft) permanent magnet synchronous motor located above the rear axle. (All prices are before applicable federal or local tax credits and incentives, and the 1st Edition is now sold out.)

American-made ID.4s will begin churning out of VW’s Chattanooga factory next year, and sometime after that we should see a ~$35,000 version with a smaller battery pack using locally made cells. Until then, there’s just a single pack option with a useable capacity of 77 kWH (82 kWh total capacity), made of 288 pouch cells split across 12 modules.

Range, efficiency, and charging

For the time being, range is the main thing people want from a battery EV. The official EPA rating for the ID.4 is 250 miles of range (402 km) from the battery’s useable 77 kWh. I averaged 3.3 miles/kWh, using both the heating and air conditioning thanks to some late February weather that ranged from below freezing to warm enough for short sleeves in the space of a day.

The vast majority of ID.4 owners will plug them in each night, and with enough amps, the onboard AC charger can reach 11 kW, recharging the battery in 7.5 hours. A DC fast charger takes just 38 minutes to charge the ID.4 from five percent to 80 percent, at a maximum of 125 kW. (As we have found with most other BEVs and fast charging, if you arrive with a greater state of charge, it still takes roughly the same time to get to 80 percent; the battery just draws a lower amount of power.) VW is even including three years of unlimited DC charging with Electrify America, which is good news for potential buyers who don’t have a garage or carport where they can charge at home.

The new ISO15118 Plug and Charge protocol hasn’t made its way to the ID.4 yet, but VW tells us that should arrive with the first over-the-air software update later this year. Once that happens, you won’t even need the Electrify America app on your phone, as the car will handle authentication and billing when it handshakes with the charger.

A very VW experience

By now I’ve sat through at least three briefings about the ID.4, and each time VW stressed that it wanted to make a crossover to appeal to normal VW customers, something that could tempt the electrocurious out of a Tiguan without scaring them. That’s achieved in part by the interior, which is instantly recognizable as a VW through the design language but also the use of materials, like the pebble-textured soft plastic that it so often uses for dashboards and door cards.

Our 1st Edition stands out by having a white steering wheel, as well as whimsical Play and Pause symbols on the pedals, but as you’ll see in the gallery above, it looks a lot more sober with a black steering wheel. Ahead of the driver is a 5.3-inch main instrument display, and to the right of it, the drive selector. Twist it away from you to engage D (or B, which increases regenerative braking), and toward you to engage reverse. To park, simply push the button on the end. Turn signals and windshield wipers are activated by conventional stalks, and there are the usual controls on the wheel for adaptive cruise control and media.

We’ll get to the infotainment experience in a bit more depth shortly, but the 1st Edition and ID.4 Pro S both use a 12-inch touchscreen infotainment system, with a smaller 10-inch unit in the ID.4 Pro. Unlike some other new BEVs, there are still plenty of soft-touch buttons to push for common controls like the wing mirrors, climate, volume, lights, and so on.

The passenger experience in the ID.4 is a spacious one, whether that’s in the front or back seats. As you’ll note in the pictures, there’s plenty of leg room for the rear seats (37.6 inches/954 mm) and there’s a completely flat floor at the back. There is a decent array of storage bins and cubbies, and the cargo area grows from 30.3 cubic feet (858 L) to 64.2 cubic feet (1,818 L) with the rear seats folded down. We didn’t test it as a tow vehicle, but it’s rated for 2,000 lb (907 kg) loads in the US, with the forthcoming AWD version rated for 2,700 lbs (1,225 kg).

What’s it like to drive?

My earlier brief exposure to the ID.4 meant I had realistic expectations in terms of driver engagement. The very first thing you notice is how tight the turning circle is, at just 33.5 feet (10.2 m). It is not a performance-focused BEV like a Model 3 Performance or Polestar 2, and I can’t even find mention of 0-60 mph time in the press materials. But it was actually more engaging to drive than the more powerful AWD Ford Mustang Mach-E I tested recently, at least when in Eco or Comfort modes.

Those two modes offer minimal lift-off regenerative braking when in D, opting instead to let the car coast as efficiently as possible. As such, making progress becomes all about managing momentum, minimizing wheel inputs that could scrub away speed, with little applications of power here and there to keep a relatively constant velocity. Adding more regen is as simple as giving the drive selector another twist away from you to shift into B, which I find helpful approaching a corner or when it’s time to crawl in traffic.

The remapping of the accelerator pedal in Eco, and the consequently slow acceleration, might not be everyone’s taste, but even in this slowest mode the ID.4 is still quick enough to merge on the highway. For everyday driving, Comfort mode is the sweet spot both in town and on the highway, where it cruises with the best of them.

Among the changes that occur when you switch into Sport mode is the activation of regen braking when in D. Coupled with the most immediate power delivery map for the accelerator, this is no doubt the quickest setting to use on a race track, should anyone ever take their ID.4 to a track day. And despite having just 201 hp and weighing in at 4,665 lbs (2,116 kg), I saw the traction control intervene a few times, usually when accelerating hard uphill—presumably this unloads the rear axle just enough for the wheels to spin.

VW has made a philosophical choice with the ID.4’s regen braking—even at its strongest it will only decelerate the car at 0.13 G, and not to a complete stop. Slowing the car with the brake pedal involves regenerative braking only if it’s at or below 0.25 G deceleration—above that and the ID.4’s friction brakes take over. Slightly annoyingly, there’s also no brake hold feature, so you’ll need to keep your foot on the left pedal at a stop to prevent the car from creeping forward.

Infotainment

The ID.4 uses the latest version of VW’s infotainment system, known as MIB3. You’ll use this to interact with the car’s settings as well as for media playback and navigation, although many will choose to cast their phones (wired or wirelessly) using Apple CarPlay or Android Auto.

For a more in-depth look at the system, please refer to the gallery above. Briefly, it has a decent UI with big targets that are easy to see in your peripheral vision, and it’s intuitive to use. And I am a definite fan of the way that you can quickly access the climate controls, advanced driver assist settings, drive modes (as well as the parking settings) from actual buttons that are on either side of the hazard light switch. Above this are permanent touch controls for the driver- and passenger-side temperature settings, as well as volume.

My biggest complaint about the infotainment actually involves wireless CarPlay, and so I’m unsure whether the issue lies with VW, Apple, or some combination of both. Regardless, it would sometimes freeze up and then start responding a minute or two later, cycling through the various commands I tried issuing, poking a non-responsive screen during the intervening time.

But swiping from page to page in the native UI could also be laggy at times, as well. I also don’t have many complimentary things to say about the onboard voice recognition; there’s a helpful LED lightstrip embedded in the dashboard near the windshield that will indicate when the system is listening or responding, and you can interact with the navigation, media, and climate settings, but only if it understands you. Reader, it did not often understand me. (This will presumably change when VW moves to Android Automotive as the operating system for its infotainment, but that switch is some time off and would not apply to cars already on the road.)

All ID.4s ship with a suite of advanced driver assists called IQ.Drive. This bundles forward collision warning, automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection, blind spot monitoring, rear cross traffic alerts, adaptive cruise control and lane keeping, travel assist (which is the combo of lane keeping and adaptive cruise), and emergency assist, which will bring the car to an emergency stop with the hazard lights on if its driver becomes unresponsive. There is no infrared camera for driver monitoring, but it does use a capacitive sensor in the steering wheel instead of measuring torque on the steering column as a proxy for knowing whether the driver’s hands are on the steering wheel.

Connected cars remain a controversial topic with much of the Ars audience. But they’re here to stay, and like most new cars, the ID.4 is indeed connected. The VW Car-Net app will let you warm or cool the interior of the ID.4, which I greatly appreciated when taking the car out on a below-freezing February morning. (The Mustang Mach-E of a few weeks ago was unable to perform this task.) But I should warn you that the app almost always became non-responsive for several minutes after issuing a command to the car.

A VW ID.4 parked on a salt flat at sunset — Credit: Volkswagen

Overall, the impression you should take home is that the ID.4 is a solid effort from VW. It’s keenly priced even before you take into account the $7,500 IRS tax credit, and it’s a spacious, comfortable crossover to ride in. The one thing I’ll be watching out for is how the ID.4 develops over time through software; after all, Tesla has proved over the past few years that customers like it when their cars get better over time thanks to software improvements, and I-Pace owners got an extra eight miles of range from Jaguar in a similar manner. In 2019 VW set up a new division to handle software development across the entire group, and this past week VW Group CEO Herbert Diess confirmed that VW is planning a regular tempo of updates every 12 weeks.

Jonathan M. Gitlin Automotive Editor

Jonathan is the Automotive Editor at Ars Technica. He has a BSc and PhD in Pharmacology. In 2014 he decided to indulge his lifelong passion for the car by leaving the National Human Genome Research Institute and launching Ars Technica's automotive coverage. He lives in Washington, DC.

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