[Monkeyhanger]

Surely the major upgrade will be interior quality including plastics, seats and infotainment/interfaces? I’d be surprised if they wait more than a couple of years to sort these out as they’re the key things putting people off

Not sure they'll upgrade the door cards- everything VW has had a downgrade lately. Not sure if they're experimenting how low they can go and be tolerated, or whether they were stepping on Audis toes too much. The Golf 8 is a little worse than 7.5, Polo 6 door cards are very cheap, T-Roc is a real showcase of cheapness...

The door cards on the ID3 aren't too bad - plastics are harder than Golf 8 but softer than Polo 6, or at least less hard looking, less glossy and more matt on the finish.

The seats do look cheap to me, having owned a string of performance VWs, but if I'd been used to driving Golf S instead of Golf R, the difference wouldn't have seemed so big visually (they still felt comfy on my test drive). I think we've got to remember that the ID3 isn't a performance model, even though it's as quick as a GTD.

I'm a little disappointed that Life got the cheaper seats and some damn ugly cloth, but given the huge price gap (thanks to the grant threshold), if I felt that strongly, I'd get a leather retrim if the ID3 looks to be a long term keeper.

I just wish the grab handles weren't piano black.

 

[Monkeyhanger]

At the risk of diverting to a thread on interior...
We really like the interior and seats of our 1st Edition. Minimalist bright, roomy, airy. Seats comfortable on long journeys without squeezing you into a bucket seat you will never use re hard cornering etc.
Clearly the infotainment screen and light cluster need redesign and a few more switches like steering wheel heater on the actual steering wheel would be good.
Rear speakers standard also needed.
Full parking assist would be a real plus.

I do think that the lack of rear speakers is a ridiculous omission that would cost them coppers to implement but a significant amount to retrofit (hundreds). I wonder whether the cheapest option here would be for front L and front R wiring to each be spliced/split into fron/rear L and front/rear R if you're not wanting to have front L and R blasting. Surmising it would require no coding doing it that way.

 

[Monkeyhanger]

Judging by other cars that have had mid model refreshes, I would expect the battery cells to be updated to add 20-30% more capacity. There might even be faster charging. Not sure about V2G.
I'd hope they'd add rear speakers as standard and update the firmware a bit, possibly with a larger and faster display.

I can't imagine extra battery capacity coming in unless they find a way of making them lighter, smaller and cheaper. Giving the customer 30% more of one of the most expensive constituent parts of the car for little or no additional money is unlikely to happen. Giving you 30% more battery capacity following a radical price drop in those batteries might.happen. Once these cars have a battery capacity that can crack 400 miles of motorway speeds in Winter, I don't think there'll be much motivation to increase it further.

 

[Monkeyhanger]

The Leaf, i3 and Zoe have all had bigger batteries fitted to them twice in model refreshes, 3 times in the Leaf 62's case.

They've been out quite a while though and technology and costings of the batteries would have changed a lot (especially since the first leaf came out). If batteries are significantly cheaper in 3-4 years time, and smaller/lighter, its a real possibility, but the last thing the ID3 needs right now is more weight and possibly the loss of that 5th seat as per the Tour with its 77kWh battery.