Good Day Everyone,
We just purchased a 2021 ID.4 PRO last week. I drove a Tesla, my son's, for about 7 months while in San Diego in 2017; he was out to sea on a 7 month deployment. I loved the one pedal driving. I'm really a MB Sprinter Camper/ RV man for road trips and I do mean road trips; 236K in the last 5 years.
Now to the meat of my 1st weeks experience with the ID.4.
EPA estimates are for the the entire 100% State of Charge (SOC) and should get us 250 miles. The ID.4 like all other EV's gets better Miles per gallon gasoline equivalent (mpg/e) in the city than on the highway. But, I noticed that the ID.4 compared to Tesla and the Chevy Bolt don't really do much regenerating on highway going down hills as compared to the others. In fact, I noticed at 65/70 mph with no regeneration its discharge consumption is relatively flat-0 or consuming some battery power going downhill. That seems like quite poor rolling resistance for a 4000 lb vehicle.
This morning, was my first trip on the highway; actually the Pennsylvania Turnpike. I was sadly disappointed with the mpg/e. I noted beforehand that the mpg/e is better in city driving and already expected less efficiency at highway speeds. But, my calculations mean the ID.4 only really gets about 180-200 miles of driving distance while consuming 90% Stare of Charge SOC. Sure one can get slightly better distance if you drive with the climate control off. Why do that? I didn't have the AC on but I did have the fan on Auto medium. Outside ambient temp was 50° and I asked for 70° inside. I would never talk about electron flow in and out of batteries or Lithium battery chemistry here because that's too much scientific information and useless for plain simple language to express what we need to know to drive an EV.
Yes range anxiety is a real thing but as time goes by and we learn our vehicles personality traits and the geographic region in which we drive and range anxiety lessens.
I consumed 40% SOC to go 70 miles. Whoa, that's a terrible. So I stopped at Electrify America in Allentown PA on my return trip at 10% SOC and recharged to 90%. My average for the return trip was better and only used 30% SOC for roughly the same 70 mile. It took 40% SOC to get there. The actual usage was 2.6 mi/kWh over 140 miles. Again terrible; I was down to 62% SOC when I arrived home. There are only 311 miles on the car with 70% city, and 30% highway driving and the actual lifetime statistic is 2.9 mi/kWh. I called my brother with a Chevy Bolt and his lifetime average is 4.4mi/kWh although that is at 4 years and 40k total miles.
I completed charging it at home back to the normal 80% SOC and the Guess O Meter reflects 208mi range. That's more plausible.
Again, I believe the rolling resistance is terrible. The ID.4 has 235/50R20 tires that have a good 8.5" of width on the pavement. That's a lot of square inches of contact on the asphalt. Likely needs that much at it's approx. 4000 lbs base weight. Twice has heavy as an ICE counterpart.
My initial expectations were all wrong. There's now way this vehicle is going to get 250 miles per charge even if it's topped of to 100% for long trips. I would also like to set it to charge to 95% like I did for the Telsa S, but it only allows percentages in 10% increments.
I also read others post discussing the science behind reduced charge rates when over 50 and 80%. That's pretty much old data. The rates taday are reduced but not that much as there were in the early EV years.
The ID.4 has a software-set max charge rate of 94-95kw. From the 10-50% SOC it took 95kW charge rate. At 81%, I observed it lowered to 64kW and at 88% it was still taking 43kW. Not to bad in my experience and better than my early years driving the Tesla.
Here's another big complaint. The total Electrify America fast charge was 65kWh at $16.53. No $ charge of course with 36mo free charging. That was $16.53 for 140 miles. That's really $0.11 per mi which is terrible. 140 miles at 35mpg in an ICE, VW Passat would be $12 @ $3.00 per gallon. I left home at 53% SOC and returned with 62%. I consumed 40% to get there and 28% to return cuz I slowed down. Add 12% to $12 of an ICE fuel cost and it's still less than the $16 EV $ charges at $13.44. And why the differential cost? That's because of the fast charging "tier rates". Volkswagen, Porsche, and Audi own Electrify America. The charging tier rates are $0.16 for up to 90kW/min and doubled at $0.32kW/min from 90-150, 90-350kW/min. If one could charge at double the rate, say 188/kW the time would be half and it would equal the same total dollar amount.
Here's my biggest complaint with Volkswagen. They should have and could have set the maximum charge limit to 88kW to limit the EV charge cost to the tier 1 levels and the cost for this trip would have been $8.265. The question is, since Electrify America is a subsidiary of Volkswagen, Porsche, and Audi was it a deliberate economic tactic to have this vehicle charge at a tier 2 charging rate to make money to offset the free charging offer? It doesn't make sense for the consumer to be at the lowest end of the charger's tier 2 rate. It would make more sense to accept the higher rate and cut the minutes in half, for the consumer; that way the total cost would be the same. I want to and will ask Volkswagen to update my software, any yours, to the maximum 88 kW rate and make it fair. After all, the ID.4 only has an 82 kWh battery pack (gross capacity) and 72 kWh (usable) Lithium-Ion battery so why are they allowed charging above the 100% capacity rate anyway? Sure it's okay in my book to begin charging at 100% of the battery rating but 94-95kw it is above 100%. I think it is very shrewd to force me into the tier 2 rate minimum, by 4-5/kW for Corporate Prosperity. Secondly there no way with the terrain here in Pennsylvania to achieve the touted 250-260 mile range estimates.
I'm reporting that the best we will see driving on Pennsylvania highways is 180-200 mile range using 90% SOC and eventually paying way to much: double for charging away from home!
The same 64KWh that Electrify America charges $16.53 only cost me $7.80 at home.
We just purchased a 2021 ID.4 PRO last week. I drove a Tesla, my son's, for about 7 months while in San Diego in 2017; he was out to sea on a 7 month deployment. I loved the one pedal driving. I'm really a MB Sprinter Camper/ RV man for road trips and I do mean road trips; 236K in the last 5 years.
Now to the meat of my 1st weeks experience with the ID.4.
EPA estimates are for the the entire 100% State of Charge (SOC) and should get us 250 miles. The ID.4 like all other EV's gets better Miles per gallon gasoline equivalent (mpg/e) in the city than on the highway. But, I noticed that the ID.4 compared to Tesla and the Chevy Bolt don't really do much regenerating on highway going down hills as compared to the others. In fact, I noticed at 65/70 mph with no regeneration its discharge consumption is relatively flat-0 or consuming some battery power going downhill. That seems like quite poor rolling resistance for a 4000 lb vehicle.
This morning, was my first trip on the highway; actually the Pennsylvania Turnpike. I was sadly disappointed with the mpg/e. I noted beforehand that the mpg/e is better in city driving and already expected less efficiency at highway speeds. But, my calculations mean the ID.4 only really gets about 180-200 miles of driving distance while consuming 90% Stare of Charge SOC. Sure one can get slightly better distance if you drive with the climate control off. Why do that? I didn't have the AC on but I did have the fan on Auto medium. Outside ambient temp was 50° and I asked for 70° inside. I would never talk about electron flow in and out of batteries or Lithium battery chemistry here because that's too much scientific information and useless for plain simple language to express what we need to know to drive an EV.
Yes range anxiety is a real thing but as time goes by and we learn our vehicles personality traits and the geographic region in which we drive and range anxiety lessens.
I consumed 40% SOC to go 70 miles. Whoa, that's a terrible. So I stopped at Electrify America in Allentown PA on my return trip at 10% SOC and recharged to 90%. My average for the return trip was better and only used 30% SOC for roughly the same 70 mile. It took 40% SOC to get there. The actual usage was 2.6 mi/kWh over 140 miles. Again terrible; I was down to 62% SOC when I arrived home. There are only 311 miles on the car with 70% city, and 30% highway driving and the actual lifetime statistic is 2.9 mi/kWh. I called my brother with a Chevy Bolt and his lifetime average is 4.4mi/kWh although that is at 4 years and 40k total miles.
I completed charging it at home back to the normal 80% SOC and the Guess O Meter reflects 208mi range. That's more plausible.
Again, I believe the rolling resistance is terrible. The ID.4 has 235/50R20 tires that have a good 8.5" of width on the pavement. That's a lot of square inches of contact on the asphalt. Likely needs that much at it's approx. 4000 lbs base weight. Twice has heavy as an ICE counterpart.
My initial expectations were all wrong. There's now way this vehicle is going to get 250 miles per charge even if it's topped of to 100% for long trips. I would also like to set it to charge to 95% like I did for the Telsa S, but it only allows percentages in 10% increments.
I also read others post discussing the science behind reduced charge rates when over 50 and 80%. That's pretty much old data. The rates taday are reduced but not that much as there were in the early EV years.
The ID.4 has a software-set max charge rate of 94-95kw. From the 10-50% SOC it took 95kW charge rate. At 81%, I observed it lowered to 64kW and at 88% it was still taking 43kW. Not to bad in my experience and better than my early years driving the Tesla.
Here's another big complaint. The total Electrify America fast charge was 65kWh at $16.53. No $ charge of course with 36mo free charging. That was $16.53 for 140 miles. That's really $0.11 per mi which is terrible. 140 miles at 35mpg in an ICE, VW Passat would be $12 @ $3.00 per gallon. I left home at 53% SOC and returned with 62%. I consumed 40% to get there and 28% to return cuz I slowed down. Add 12% to $12 of an ICE fuel cost and it's still less than the $16 EV $ charges at $13.44. And why the differential cost? That's because of the fast charging "tier rates". Volkswagen, Porsche, and Audi own Electrify America. The charging tier rates are $0.16 for up to 90kW/min and doubled at $0.32kW/min from 90-150, 90-350kW/min. If one could charge at double the rate, say 188/kW the time would be half and it would equal the same total dollar amount.
Here's my biggest complaint with Volkswagen. They should have and could have set the maximum charge limit to 88kW to limit the EV charge cost to the tier 1 levels and the cost for this trip would have been $8.265. The question is, since Electrify America is a subsidiary of Volkswagen, Porsche, and Audi was it a deliberate economic tactic to have this vehicle charge at a tier 2 charging rate to make money to offset the free charging offer? It doesn't make sense for the consumer to be at the lowest end of the charger's tier 2 rate. It would make more sense to accept the higher rate and cut the minutes in half, for the consumer; that way the total cost would be the same. I want to and will ask Volkswagen to update my software, any yours, to the maximum 88 kW rate and make it fair. After all, the ID.4 only has an 82 kWh battery pack (gross capacity) and 72 kWh (usable) Lithium-Ion battery so why are they allowed charging above the 100% capacity rate anyway? Sure it's okay in my book to begin charging at 100% of the battery rating but 94-95kw it is above 100%. I think it is very shrewd to force me into the tier 2 rate minimum, by 4-5/kW for Corporate Prosperity. Secondly there no way with the terrain here in Pennsylvania to achieve the touted 250-260 mile range estimates.
I'm reporting that the best we will see driving on Pennsylvania highways is 180-200 mile range using 90% SOC and eventually paying way to much: double for charging away from home!
The same 64KWh that Electrify America charges $16.53 only cost me $7.80 at home.
