Volkswagen ID.4 Review (2021-present)

What is the Volkswagen ID.4?

Think of the ID.4 as a Volkswagen Tiguan for the electric era, and you’re spot on. This all-electric SUV sits on the same mechanical underpinnings as the smaller ID.3 hatchback and the ID.4's chief nemesis, the Skoda Enyaq iV (it's known as the MEB platform, fact fans).

The ID.4 is actually a bit longer than a standard Tiguan, and it’s similar in length to cars such as the Skoda Kodiaq and – yet another German SUV from within the VE Group camp – the Audi Q7. However, the VW ID.4 doesn’t have a seven-seat option.

How practical is it?

The VW ID.4 has a big 543-litre boot, which will easily take a chunky double buggy and a dog if you use a boot separator, and there’s storage for your cables underneath the boot floor.

There’s also more space for those using the rear seats than you get in most other big SUVs; legroom back there is limo-like, and the flat floor also makes the ID.4 fairly comfy even with three people sat across the rear bench. It’s a shame that the 60/40 split rear seats don’t fold totally flat, that the variable height boot floor is optional, and that there’s no storage under the bonnet of the car, unlike in the Ford Mustang Mach-E and Tesla Model 3. Even so, the VW ID.4 is a spacious and practical car, with plenty of cubbies and space to make family life easy and convenient.

The ID.4 is a luxurious feeling car for the driver, too. The materials around the cabin look and feel classy, and it’s easy to find a natural driving position, although we’d like the steering wheel to have a touch more height adjustment.

What's it like to drive?

Currently, VW only offers this big EV with a 77kWh lithium-ion 'Pro Performance' battery and a 201bhp electric motor that drives the rear wheels. Official figures vary from 310 to 323 miles of range depending on what version you go for. It’s exactly the same sized battery as that used in the 82kWh Skoda Enyaq; it’s only the marketing literature that’s different. Skoda quotes total capacity, rather than the ‘usable’ capacity that VW states, so don’t be fooled into thinking that the Skoda has a bigger battery.

On the road, the ID.4 delivers a cushy, rather serene driving experience. There’s very little wind- and tyre noise in the ID.4, while the seamless build of power, fairly soft suspension and light but intuitive steering weight makes it all feel unashamedly comfort-oriented. Great for a family SUV, then.

You can sling the ID.4 into a corner with surprising verve if you want to; just get the weight balanced nicely as otherwise it tends to understeer, but it’s not hard to take advantage of the VW ID.4’s decent mid-range performance and easy-to-judge throttle response. Even so, this is a car that feels as if it’s set up to relax rather than excite, so look to the usefully faster and slightly more engaging Ford Mustang Mach-E if you want a bit more zing to the way your electric SUV drives.

Our advice is to not bother upgrading to the optional adaptive dampers: they do bring a stiffer, sharper setting but in the other modes they actually bring sloppier body control and ultimately make the ID.4 feel less composed. If you avoid the really big alloy wheels, the standard suspension is just right.

The adaptive regenerative braking is easy to get used to. This is the system that slows the car down as you lift off the throttle, improving efficiency by gathering energy from the car’s forward motion. The car automatically increases brake regen' as you approach a junction or traffic up ahead, and is smooth and easy to predict. You can override it with a ‘B’ mode that brings heavier braking, but it’s not a one-pedal driving mode like you get in the Nissan Leaf.

Our biggest criticism with the 77kWh VW ID.4 is that we’d like better real-world efficiency. We saw around 230 miles in mixed driving and fairly mild temperatures, so you should expect to see under 200 miles on a wintery motorway run; EVs are always least efficient in cold weather and at motorway speeds. Summer temperatures and a lot of time in suburbia will see that real-world range creep up to over 300 miles, but we’d still like to see the ID.4 getting closer to its claimed range figure in normal everyday conditions.

Technology, equipment & infotainment

The biggest frustration with the ID.4 is that the climate control switches are integrated into the standard 10-inch infotainment touchscreen (top-spec ID.4 Max cars get a 12-inch upgrade). You don’t have to leave the main nav or media screen to make the change the temperature, thanks to the touch-sensitive switches just beneath the screen, but it’s annoying that those same switches are so easy to hit by accident.

In fact, even the touch-sensitive buttons on the steering wheel – while they look cool – are far too easy to hit by mistake. The physical buttons on the Skoda Enyaq’s wheel are more sensible.

The touchscreen itself is also irritating, as it doesn’t always respond quickly and it can be difficult to figure out where some settings are hidden. However, it does have all the features you’d want, including Android Auto, wireless Apple CarPlay, satnav, Bluetooth, digital radio and two USB-C inputs, and the graphics are sharp and bright.

Charging the ID.4 is done via a Type 2 or CCS socket, both of which are located in the car’s rear wing. A six-metre cable is provided, which will let you charge up at any home wallbox and most public AC charging stations. It will deliver a full battery in under 13 hours from a normal 7kW home charger. Rapid charging peaks at 125kW and will deliver a 100 miles top-up in around 20 minutes. A cable for plugging into a normal three-pin domestic socket is optional.

Volkswagen ID.4 running costs

When bought new, the ID.4 is reasonable value for a well equipped, big electric family SUV. It’s roughly on a par with the Ford Mustang Mach-E and the smaller Tesla Model 3, but the Skoda Enyaq iV is usefully cheaper, albeit not as well equipped. Monthly costs are also competitive, but you’re looking at well over £500 a month for the ID.4 Life, even after a £5,000 deposit on a traditional PCP finance program.

You can also opt for the VW ‘Lease and Care’ method of monthly payments. This is a subscription service, so you’ll pay as much as £644 per month for a VW ID.4 Life, but that includes all maintenance, such as servicing and tyres, roadside assistance, and even the use of a petrol or diesel VW model for seven days per year. You can’t buy the car at the end of the contract, but you can choose to exit the contract with only a few month’s notice. Think of it as a mobile phone contract-style method; Volvo offers a similar thing on the Volvo XC40 Pure Electric Recharge, which is way faster than the ID.4 if not as big, and is available on a subscription basis for not much more money.

We’d like to see better real-world efficiency from the VW ID.4, but it’s still going to be much cheaper to run than petrol or diesel alternatives. A full charge from a home charger will cost under £11, assuming a standard domestic electricity tariff of 14p. You can more than halve that by shopping around for a tariff that offers cheap overnight electricity, but even if you pay full whack the ID.4 is still going to cost around a third of what it’d cost to fuel a petrol alternative. There’s no Vehicle Excise Duty on pure electric cars, and insurance costs are comparable with those of other big SUVs.

Volkswagen ID.4 reliability

The VW ID.4 is too new for us to be able to judge its reliability with any accuracy, but it does come with a three-year, 60,000-mile warranty. The battery is covered by an eight-year, 100,000-mile warranty that also offers a performance guarantee, so that if the battery (and therefore the maximum range of the car) drops below 70% within that period, VW will refurbish or replace it.

It’s unlikely that you will have issues with battery longevity; evidence from the electric cars that have been in circulation for ten years and more shows that a modern lithium-ion battery will typically outlive the car itself, but you should expect to lose around 10 to 15% of the battery’s performance every 100,000 miles.

Volkswagen as a brand came a middling 20th out of 31 brands in the 2020 What Car? used car reliability survey. Electric vehicles are generally more reliable than petrol or diesel as they have far fewer moving parts.