Volkswagen ID.4: VW’s first electric SUV is highly impressive

At this moment in time the Volkswagen Tiguan is the company’s bestselling car in Ireland, having notched up over 1,710-unit sales to the end of June and standing as the fourth best-selling car here overall.

This is not only a reflection of the public’s affection-switch from cars to SUVs – 12 of the top 20 sellers here are now variants of the rapidly ubiquitous sports utility genre – but indicates a growing trend whereby people are not only ditching non-electric cars, but they are opting for electric SUVs.

And one of the most important of these vehicles is the new VW ID.4, which is the first electric SUV from the company and represents their second step on a road to electrification which the German giant deemed necessary only after it had been found cheating the public and the authorities on a grand scale.

As the rest of the world was backing the collective automotive industry into a corner about electrification and consumers, consumed by fear, worry and self-recrimination were forcing the issue and demanding workable electric cars, VW’s earlier duplicity was, it seemed, a secondary issue.

The primary concern in the VW boardroom was not totally about the ‘greening’ of our little blue world, but restoring the manufacturing giant to the sort of profit levels its shareholders deemed necessary and consequently the ID.3 hatchback and the ID.4 SUV were fast-tracked into production with the dual aim of cashing-in on the public demand for electric vehicles and, importantly, keeping the dosh coming in.

In any event, we are where we are and the VW electrification programme is now well underway and both the ID.3 and ID.4 represent the company’s first forays into a new future. We’ve already reviewed the ID.3 in these columns and found it to be an acceptable and worthy first effort on Wolfsburg’s behalf.

The ID.4 is a further step along the road and – it has to be said – a car which is not only firmly in step with the current customer zeitgeist, but also a very good machine indeed and one, we suspect, which will have a much greater long-term impact on worldwide markets than its smaller sibling.

Indeed, the car is already having a huge impact on VW sales here and abroad. In Ireland to the end of June some 784 ID.4 units were sold here, fully 175 units more than the ID.3, which has clocked up 609-unit sales this year.

In some ways, you be correct in surmising, the ID.4 is effectively an all-electric version of the Tiguan and as such it was always going to be hot property in terms of dealership showroom traffic, as well as among those buyers who want an in-the-metal display of their new-found green cred.

Size-wise, the ID.4 sits somewhere between the T-Roc and the Tiguan in VW’s current model line-up, but its practicality and dimensions put it closer to the latter. The fact it has more interior room than the Tiguan – especially in the rear passenger space – is largely thanks to the packaging of the electric bits-and-pieces and the absence of an intrusive prop shaft to give a flat floor.

It is also a decidedly good-looking car and one which leaves the staid ID.3 for dead. It’s well-proportioned, sleek and, visually, a much better-balanced machine than its hatchback sibling. And, even though it sits on the same wheelbase as the hatchback, it is wider and provides more passenger room.

Now, much of the criticism levelled at electric cars is that because there’s no noise and any feeling that anything’s going on, the whole experience is anodyne and dull. Well, that’s certainly not true here.

The dynamics of the ID.4 are such that the driving experience is actually quite thrilling, especially if you’re willing to explore the car’s potential. The way this thing interacts with the road is redolent of the best day-to-day driving machines you will encounter anywhere.

With an evenly balanced weight distribution and a relatively low centre of gravity for an SUV, this VW displays grip levels and a handling prowess you’d expect from a proper 4WD machine. It might not be described as breath-taking, or anything, but it sure is impressive for what it is.

We tried the car in Ist Edition trim (of which there is only a limited supply) and it comes with a 77-kWh electric power source (sited under the boot floor) generating some 204 bhp and providing an 8.4 second 0-100 km/h time and a top speed of 160 km/h.

The range is quoted at 520 km by VW and as has ever been the case with such official figures, you can consider that to be a little optimistic. Realistically – and taking in a mixed driving regime of town, motorway and country driving – you can easily expect to hit the 450 km mark, even if you are giving it a bit of stick.

That’s a workable range in anyone’s language and gives the car a credibility that many electrics lack. On the driving front too the ID.4 is better than most of its rivals – although we suspect the recently arrived Skoda Enyaq iV which has the same running gear, but is slightly cheaper, might ultimately give it a run for its money in the popularity stakes.

Generally everything about this car oozes positivity and it was genuinely difficult to pick holes in any aspect of its looks, its’ practicality, its comfort levels, its equipping or even the way it drives. Sure you could get snippy about stuff like the haptic controls on the steering wheel, but new-ish technologies like this always take a while to bed-in.

Certainly the infotainment and connectivity controls here are not as half-baked as we saw on the ID.3, where the system demands you scroll through all manner of menus and sub-menus to get what you want to happen to happen. This is a much more driver-friendly set-up, but it is still not particularly intuitive and will take getting used to.

One other small quibble would be that the A-pillars are quite bulky and restrict three-quarter vision when cornering.

On the up-side, though, the adjustable brake regenerative system is very neat and thanks to steering wheel-mounted controls you can adjust what’s happening here to your personal requirements. You can even make the car a one-pedal operation if you choose, which is particularly handy in an urban setting.

The ID.4 is not a perfect machine by any standards, but it’s a bloody good one and a much more considered car than the ID.3. That is something of an achievement given the relatively short timeframe involved in the development process.

In fairness to VW, it has already digested some of the less palatable bits of the hatchback and regurgitated those faults into the corrective measures we see in the ID.4. 

You cannot but be impressed that they have achieved so much – and tweaked so many of the obvious faults of the ID.3 to the benefit of potential owners.

In some ways, the ID.4 is VW’s vision of the future, even though it is shaped by current consumer demands. Even with that potential flaw in mind, careful examination of the evidence shows that the company has nailed down a winner here.

Fundamentally this is a top-drawer SUV and one which will propel VW into much better things down the road. It is still early days yet in our newly electrified electric automotive world, but the ID.4 is a glowing template pointing us in the direction of much better things to come.

* Thanks to Blackwater Motors for their help with this review.