Hey everyone! We took our new ID.4 out for a covid-compliant grand tour of the local area today, totaling 144 miles (mostly motorway, but a decent amount of city, village, and country lane too). My main takeaway is: this is an incredibly comfortable family car with a lot of nice tech and a lot of space, which is absolutely ideal for family trips either to the local shops and/or the Yorkshire Dales.
Driving comfort:
- The ID.4 is a big car, but it doesn't feel big. There were times I noticed its width (narrow city streets), but it maneuvers so easily thanks to its turning radius and parking camera/sensors.
- It drives very smoothly - easily the most comfortable car I've ever driven. I am a bigger guy, and I tend to start shifting around in the seat after an hour or two. But we spent a good 4 hours in the ID.4 today, and I was 100% comfortable the entire time.
Driver assist:
- I've never had anything like adaptive cruise control before, but I must say I was incredibly impressed. The follow-distance was great, the responsiveness was great, lane assist made me feel like the car was driving itself at times.
- Sign recognition was spot on - we drove through quite a bit of motorway construction today, and the ID.4 had no issues spotting speed limit changes. I will say that the speed changes due to construction signs can be rather abrupt – both decelerating and accelerating – but they happened every time.
- The cruise control adjusts to upcoming speed limit changes very smoothly, and even took me through roundabouts at a perfect speed without me needing to touch the pedals at all. I was honestly flabbergasted at how easy the car made driving.
Efficiency:
- We averaged exactly 3.0 miles/kWh on this trip. While that would be quite low for our Zoe, I am honestly impressed. It was a chilly day (9-10 degrees), most of the driving was motorway (cruise control at 70 mph), aircon was on for me and my wife had the seat heater on the whole time. For how heavy this car is (over 2.5 tonnes!), 3 mpkWh is frankly amazing on the motorway.
- The “B” mode takes some getting used to, but gives a very pleasing amount of regen. I do wish there was a way to leave it in B mode all the time, though it remains to be seen if my wife prefers D or B.
Charging:
- Not much to say on this yet – we charged it up to 100% off our 3-pin before today’s trip, which was very easy. It is nice having the option to reduce incoming AC current (on a 3-pin it drops the current from 10a to 8a in case you need to charge off a dodgy plug or an extension lead), but with that off we were steadily pulling 2.4-2.5 kW. Not sure when we’ll get the chance to try rapid charging, but we’re looking forward to 125 kW goodness!
- We haven’t found an option to schedule charging yet – that might be in the app which we haven’t been able to connect. You can tell the car to only charge to a certain percentage though, which is helpful.
What needs improvement:
- I had a devil of a time connecting my phone via android auto. It worked about half the time, and it is possible one of the other FOUR usb-c ports would be better for this, but it was a source of frustration today.
- You would think four usb-c ports would be enough, but without the standard 12v power socket I'm used to in a car (the ID.4 has one...in the boot....) those four usb-c ports get taken up quickly (dashcam, alexa auto, driver phone, and charging a kid's tablet).
- We are having issues connecting our car to the WeConnect app (though this will hopefully be solved with an over-the-air update)
- Personal preference, but I wish all-leather seats was an option. We have kids, and kids are gross, so we are pretty terrified of what they are going to do to the velour...
- This has been touched on by multiple reviews, but the glossy plastic bits really do show fingerprints quite quickly. You can tell VW knows this, as they give a large microfiber wiping cloth with the car, but for someone who hates seeing fingerprints on surfaces, it is noticeable.
Conclusion:
- We were a little worried when we bought the ID.4. Losing the plug-in grant almost killed the idea for us, and not being able to test-drive it beforehand was nerve-wracking. But we could not be happier with our purchase. Minor issues aside, we only wish it had been available sooner! We fully expect to see thousands of these on the roads soon.
Driving comfort:
- The ID.4 is a big car, but it doesn't feel big. There were times I noticed its width (narrow city streets), but it maneuvers so easily thanks to its turning radius and parking camera/sensors.
- It drives very smoothly - easily the most comfortable car I've ever driven. I am a bigger guy, and I tend to start shifting around in the seat after an hour or two. But we spent a good 4 hours in the ID.4 today, and I was 100% comfortable the entire time.
Driver assist:
- I've never had anything like adaptive cruise control before, but I must say I was incredibly impressed. The follow-distance was great, the responsiveness was great, lane assist made me feel like the car was driving itself at times.
- Sign recognition was spot on - we drove through quite a bit of motorway construction today, and the ID.4 had no issues spotting speed limit changes. I will say that the speed changes due to construction signs can be rather abrupt – both decelerating and accelerating – but they happened every time.
- The cruise control adjusts to upcoming speed limit changes very smoothly, and even took me through roundabouts at a perfect speed without me needing to touch the pedals at all. I was honestly flabbergasted at how easy the car made driving.
Efficiency:
- We averaged exactly 3.0 miles/kWh on this trip. While that would be quite low for our Zoe, I am honestly impressed. It was a chilly day (9-10 degrees), most of the driving was motorway (cruise control at 70 mph), aircon was on for me and my wife had the seat heater on the whole time. For how heavy this car is (over 2.5 tonnes!), 3 mpkWh is frankly amazing on the motorway.
- The “B” mode takes some getting used to, but gives a very pleasing amount of regen. I do wish there was a way to leave it in B mode all the time, though it remains to be seen if my wife prefers D or B.
Charging:
- Not much to say on this yet – we charged it up to 100% off our 3-pin before today’s trip, which was very easy. It is nice having the option to reduce incoming AC current (on a 3-pin it drops the current from 10a to 8a in case you need to charge off a dodgy plug or an extension lead), but with that off we were steadily pulling 2.4-2.5 kW. Not sure when we’ll get the chance to try rapid charging, but we’re looking forward to 125 kW goodness!
- We haven’t found an option to schedule charging yet – that might be in the app which we haven’t been able to connect. You can tell the car to only charge to a certain percentage though, which is helpful.
What needs improvement:
- I had a devil of a time connecting my phone via android auto. It worked about half the time, and it is possible one of the other FOUR usb-c ports would be better for this, but it was a source of frustration today.
- You would think four usb-c ports would be enough, but without the standard 12v power socket I'm used to in a car (the ID.4 has one...in the boot....) those four usb-c ports get taken up quickly (dashcam, alexa auto, driver phone, and charging a kid's tablet).
- We are having issues connecting our car to the WeConnect app (though this will hopefully be solved with an over-the-air update)
- Personal preference, but I wish all-leather seats was an option. We have kids, and kids are gross, so we are pretty terrified of what they are going to do to the velour...
- This has been touched on by multiple reviews, but the glossy plastic bits really do show fingerprints quite quickly. You can tell VW knows this, as they give a large microfiber wiping cloth with the car, but for someone who hates seeing fingerprints on surfaces, it is noticeable.
Conclusion:
- We were a little worried when we bought the ID.4. Losing the plug-in grant almost killed the idea for us, and not being able to test-drive it beforehand was nerve-wracking. But we could not be happier with our purchase. Minor issues aside, we only wish it had been available sooner! We fully expect to see thousands of these on the roads soon.