Climate and volume sliders not illuminated? [No, but workarounds]

You can always say "Hey ID!" and tell it what you want it to do without taking your hands of the steering wheel or eyes off the road.

Not gonna lie, that seems like a pretty obvious omission on VW's part. At least have the controls backlit so you can see them at night. That being said, do people regularly change the temperature that often? I have three vehicles, all with automatic climate control, and I leave the temps set at 70F and auto mode year round. The only thing I ever change is whether the A/C is on or off (and in the ID.4 you have to go into a menu for that anyway). Not saying it's an excuse, but I don't think this lack of backlighting on these controls at night will actually bother me in day-to-day use.

I guess the other thing is that you can hit the Clima button and then you have access to all the climate controls on the same screen. So there is a way to deal with this in the dark, I suppose.

Interesting. Which VW website?

NBCGLX said:

Volkswagen ID.4 EV named to Autotrader list of 10 Best Car Interiors under $50,000 for 2021

Volkswagen of America, Inc. is pleased to announce that the all-new ID.4 EV was named to Autotrader’s list of 10 Best Car Interiors Under $50,000 for 2021.

media.vw.com

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After test driving the ID.4 and Mach-E this week the layout of the ID.4 is better. The screen placement on the Mach-E was off it was almost to close and to low. Not being angled towards the drive made it harder to read too. The Mach-E has a more premium feel to it. Then again there was a $10K+ difference between the two EVs.

NBCGLX said:

I'm wondering if the lights were off in that Jalopnik vehicle. Here's a nighttime interior shot from VW's website and you can clearly see the volume and temp buttons are illuminated.

View attachment 1758

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Now that's very interesting

LittleJoe said:

Saw this in the Jalopnik review and it blew my mind. Is this for real? The volume and the temp sliders are completely dark at night?

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I did the roadshow drive and it was at night. Confirmed it's not lit up. I was so confused trying to find it as I first stepped into the car since the Audi was playing as I entered the car. Weird omission for sure.

It's sadly not lit up. Could be interior lights which looks like it lits them up.

NBCGLX said:

That being said, do people regularly change the temperature that often?

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As someone that lives in a climate where it's generally dark during commuting hours 1/4 of the year I would definitely appreciate being able to see the volume slider and climate controls, two of the most frequently used controls in the car. Even with auto controls, as someone who carpools, the passenger temp setting is often changed. I can see from ID.3 videos online that it looks like it's the same there as well, no illumination. What a big oversight. I understand you can hit the climate button to get to the on screen controls, but what about the volume? You've got the steering wheel controls, but your passenger is left pulling out a flashlight for volume controls? It's 2021, it shouldn't be this complicated.

NBCGLX said:

I'm wondering if the lights were off in that Jalopnik vehicle.

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The lights are on. See the illuminated Hazard, Assist, and Mode lights below the sliders.

I will suggest that before we spin out of control on this that you go see the vehicle in person. Yes, it is a stupid thing, but I noticed on my current car that the temperature controls are not the best lit either. As I said in my review, the ambient light from the display doesn't make it all that difficult. But to each their own.

It seems like the ID.4 has a few annoying interior things like this. Maybe they are deal breakers for some, but to me they are small potatoes that will be easily adjusted to with time. Simply put, there still aren't a plethora of "long range" EVs available to the general public and each offering has plenty of annoying little things to consider. Personally, the relative cost, comfort, and finished/familiar car feel of the VW ID.4 make the strange button choices tolerable compared to the Bolt, Mach E, and Tesla offerings. Sure, I could continue to wait for the entire industry to lock in the perfect config, but I'm in the market for a new EV in the next few months, not years.

That picture potentially has an important clue: if you look in the volume slider you can see Infrared LEDs built into the slider, they appear as little purple dots and are probably only visible in pictures. But they may have something to do with the gesture controls, or perhaps even the reliability of the sliders themselves. I really don't know, and am guessing, but it seems likely to me that they perhaps used to illuminate the controls, but that interfered with whatever those IR LEDs are doing, so they made the decision to get rid of the backlight to preserve that other function. There are certainly more possible answers to this missing feature than just cost cutting or an oversight by the designers.

ID.Furkan said:

It's sadly not lit up. Could be interior lights which looks like it lits them up.

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So how much of a problem is that for you?

I remember reading somewhere (sorry can't find it) that VW representative admitted it's their blunder. Oh well. It certainly is annoying.

Thanks. The exact photo I was looking for

ErickF said:

You can always say "Hey ID!" and tell it what you want it to do without taking your hands of the steering wheel or eyes off the road.

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I tried to say “HEY ID, please turn on the light in the Glove comparment!!“
That doesn't work either. 😂

Shadows said:

I tried to say “HEY ID, please turn on the light in the Glove comparment!!“
That doesn't work either. 😂

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Maybe remove the "please" part next time?