2021 Volkswagen ID.4 Reviews, Pricing & Specs

The ID.4 was designed from the ground up as an EV, and Volkswagen wanted to show that off. While some electric cars mimic the styling of their respective makers’ gasoline models, the ID.4 gets a more distinctive look. It eschews the fake toughness of the gasoline Volkswagen Tiguan and Atlas crossovers, replacing straight lines and sharp angles with a streamlined profile and wheels pushed out to the corners of the body.

The ID.4 is one in a series of electric cars based on VW’s EV-specific MEB platform. It follows the European-market ID.3 hatchback, hence the ID.4 designation. Volkswagen knows crossovers sell better in North America than hatchbacks (it’s about to pull its Golf hatch from this continent, after all), so it opted to bring the ID.4 here rather than its sibling. It’s a sensible move—with one potential problem.

Aside from plastic body cladding and a slightly taller ride height, the ID.4 doesn’t look that different from the ID.3 hatchback. SUV-like styling is one of the main selling points of car-based crossovers like the ID.4 but, to our eyes, the VW doesn’t look like an SUV. Granted, that’s also the case with many other EV crossovers. The Chevy Bolt EUV is hard to distinguish from its Bolt EV sibling, and the Hyundai Kona Electric and Kia Niro EV don’t exactly look like trucks. Neither do the Ford Mustang Mach-E and Tesla Model Y, for that matter. Still, it will be interesting to see if the ID.4 reads as an electric SUV to the average buyer.

The interior design is a blend of Volkswagen’s trademark minimalism and the smartphone aesthetic. Piano black and matte plastic—in a shade of gray that called to mind a 1990s Compaq monitor—push the tech theme, which is something automakers have become convinced customers want. A leather-wrapped steering wheel and cloth seats are standard on the base ID.4 Pro, with leatherette upholstery offered as part of the Statement Package.

The ID.4 is available in two powertrain configurations. With the base rear-wheel drive (RWD) version, a single rear-mounted electric motor produces 201 horsepower and 229 pound-feet of torque and is powered by an 82-kilowatt-hour battery pack. It’s the first rear-wheel drive (RWD) Volkswagen passenger car sold in North America since the Beetle.

An all-wheel-drive (AWD) version, with a second electric motor powering the front wheels creating a dual-motor setup for a total power output of 295 horsepower and 339 lb-ft of torque, is also available.

While ID.4 is no drift machine, RWD did make a performance difference compared to its mostly front-wheel-drive (FWD) rivals. With the front wheels steering and the rear wheels driving, handling was nicely balanced. A single electric motor also doesn’t affect weight distribution the way an internal-combustion engine does, so you don’t have to worry about tail-happiness.

While it might be a good foundation for a performance car, the ID.4 isn’t sporty. It’s tuned for comfort rather than handling, with lots of body roll in corners, but a smooth ride over bumps and potholes. The electric motor provided more than enough grunt and, as with all-electric cars, instantaneous torque made pulling away from stoplights a lot of fun.

Most electric cars make aggressive use of regenerative braking, allowing for so-called “one-pedal” driving by lifting off the throttle and allowing the car to slow through regen. Volkswagen chose not to do that. In its default setting, the ID.4 relies on friction brakes like a regular car, and even the added regen in “B” mode won’t allow one-pedal driving. VW said this was to take advantage of efficiency gains from coasting, and because it wanted to provide a familiar experience for drivers coming from gasoline cars. EV fans might be disappointed, but this car really isn’t for them.

The ID.4 feels like a crossover only compared to other EVs, not the gasoline models Volkswagen benchmarked.

The VW boasts more front and rear headroom than competitor EVs, although legroom is average for the segment. However, the Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV4 offer more rear headroom, as well as more legroom in both rows, although the ID.4 does have more front headroom than the two gasoline crossovers.

VW quotes 858 litres of cargo space with the rear seats in place, and 1,818 litres with the rear seats folded. That’s more than you’ll get in a Nissan Leaf, Hyundai Kona Electric, Kia Niro EV, or the new Chevy Bolt EUV, but less than the CR-V and RAV4.

Like most other lower-priced EVs, the ID.4 doesn’t have a “frunk” for extra cargo storage. VW has said that was done to create more cabin space, and it seems like a good decision. On-paper dimensions aside, the interior felt spacious from the driver’s seat. Despite the steeply raked windshield, forward visibility was good, making parking less stressful. However, rearward visibility was substandard, thanks to thick rear pillars and a small back window.

Instead of a conventional shift lever, VW gave the ID.4 something like a motorcycle’s twist-grip gear selector. It’s located on the dashboard, to the right of the instrument cluster, theoretically freeing up more storage space on the centre console. VW didn’t provide much of that, however, as the console itself is narrow and close to the floor. You get plenty of places to put a phone (even the cupholders are perfectly shaped for that), but the console’s narrow nooks and crannies don’t leave space for larger items.

Maintaining cabin heat in electric cars can be a challenge because there’s no internal-combustion engine to act as a heat source. So VW made a heated steering wheel and front seats standard, as applying direct heat to the body is more efficient. That proved effective during our northern and snowbound mid-February test drive. The seats themselves had a good amount of cushioning, but the driver’s seat lacked thigh support, forcing the driver to sit in an uncomfortable splay-legged position.

The standard infotainment system includes a 10-inch touchscreen (a 12-inch screen is optional) with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. A 5.3-inch display screen serves as the instrument cluster, and haptic touchpads are used in place of nearly all switchgear.

This setup looks pretty cool, but we found it unnecessarily difficult to use. The problem with touchpads is that they don’t provide any tactile feedback, so it’s hard to tell if you’re pressing them hard enough without looking. That’s fine for a smartphone, but not ideal when in a moving vehicle. The control setup also requires drivers to relearn certain simple tasks, such as adjusting the mirrors (move the toggle left or right until an icon illuminates, then adjust) or lowering the rear windows (VW only included two switches, so you have to press a touchpad for that). It seemed like Volkswagen was just trying to be different for the sake of being different.

At least VW also included a natural-language voice-control system, allowing you to sidestep the haptic controls. It responds to the prompt “Hello ID,” and doesn’t require you to memorize specific prompts. That means you can just the temperature just by saying “I’m cold,” or switch radio stations by saying the name of the station you want. However, the system was a bit slow to respond, taking a few beats after each prompt.

Also debuting on the ID.4 is ID.Light, a light strip at the base of the windshield designed to communicate information to the driver. Besides giving the interior a Tron-like vibe, ID.Light changes colour for different drive modes, blinks when the car is locked or unlocked, and flashes lights on the left or right side of the dash to show which way to turn. It’s an interesting idea, but after the initial amusement wore off, we pretty much forgot about ID.Light.

While some of its features seemed like gimmicks, Volkswagen did get the infotainment basics right. The touchscreen was well-positioned atop the dashboard, with smart-looking graphics and easy-to-navigate menus. We also liked that VW offered a choice between smartphone-like icons for the main menu or a split-screen setup.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) rates the ID.4 as a Top Safety Pick+, only docking it points for certain headlights. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) gives RWD versions of the ID.4 a five-star safety rating. AWD versions have not yet been tested.

A variety of driver aids is offered, including forward-collision warning, automatic emergency braking, blind-spot monitoring, lane-keep assist, park distance control, automatic high beams, and adaptive cruise control. The ID.4 also gets two new standard features rolling out across the VW lineup for 2021. Travel Assist adds automated lane centring to the adaptive cruise control for highway driving, and Emergency Assist is designed to bring the car to a stop if it detects that the driver is incapacitated. How these features will be packaged in Canadian models hasn’t been announced as of this review being published.

Travel Assist is comparable to Nissan’s ProPilot Assist system, but a bit less advanced than the Super Cruise system that will be available in the 2022 Chevy Bolt EUV. It performed well—better, actually, than in a gasoline VW equipped with the same system. Unlike most automated lane-centring systems, Travel Assist was able to smoothly follow curves, and it was responsive with acceleration and deceleration.

The ID.4 RWD Pro has a Natural Resources Canada-estimated range specs of 400 kilometres on a full charge, with efficiency ratings of 2.4 litres-equivalent or 21.7 kWh per 100 kilometres combined (2.3/20.2 city, 2.6/23.4 highway). The ID.4 AWD Pro has a driving range of 386 kilometres, with efficiency ratings of 2.5 litres-equivalent or 22.5 kWh per 100 kilometres combined (2.4/21.5 city, 2.7/23.9 highway). The range figures are competitive, but it’s worth noting that rivals achieve similar figures with smaller battery packs.

A standard DC fast charger allows for a 5% to 80% charge in 38 minutes at a 125-kW station, according to Volkswagen, and the automaker is offering three years of charging on the Electrify Canada network (launched as part of VW’s diesel-emissions cheating settlement). The ID.4 is capable of charging at up to 125 kilowatts, but some DC fast-charging stations now offer 150 kW or higher charging. An 11-kW AC charger is also standard, but Volkswagen didn’t quote a charging time.

VW offers a four-year, 80,000-kilometre, limited warranty for the new vehicle itself and all high-voltage electrical components except the battery pack, which is covered by a separate eight-year, 160,000-kilometre, warranty.

Pricing for the 2021 VW ID.4 starts at an MSRP of $44,995 for the RWD Pro, allowing it to qualify for both the federal government’s iZEV rebate program and provincial programs where they’re offered. The ID.4 AWD Pro starts at $49,995, and the Statement Package can be applied to both for $8,000. These prices do not include the $1,950 destination charge. The ID.4 is priced higher than most competitor electric vehicles (a similarly equipped Nissan Leaf SV Plus or Hyundai Kona Electric will cost about $43,000).

The ID.4 is a revolutionary car for Volkswagen, but it’s merely evolutionary in the bigger picture of electric cars. VW’s first mass-market electric car is strong on style and interior space, but weaker on value. However, the important thing about the ID.4 isn’t the car itself, it’s VW’s aggressive marketing and production plans. The Nissan Leaf and Chevy Bolt EV were good cars too, but they were let down by marketing apathy. Will the new ID.4 be different?