Took a test drive of an ID4 (about 45 minutes drive time) at a local dealership where I have a ID4 Pro RWD on order. Providing a different perspective for those on this forum who may be like me who has been reading and enjoying the posts for the past several months. I’m a 50-yr-old mom of older teenagers coming from two ICE cars: a Toyota minivan and Corolla. I am the opposite of a car enthusiast—I just want a car to be safe, comfortable, and take me from point A to B. But I have become quite obsessed with EVs now that we have solar panels. And I am particular about things, so these are my priorities:
General Things I Noticed:
Things I Was Worried About:
Not a Fan of:
My dealer said dealerships that have at least a minimum of 10 ID4s on order got to take the extensive multihour training to become VW EV specialist, so not all dealerships have an EV specialist yet because they may have few or no preorders yet. Maybe that is why some sales people aren’t as informed yet. Ours were great. The EV specialist was very excited about the ID4. He was also younger.
- Ability to haul stuff back and forth to college (ID4 not as much room as our minivan, but still plenty of cargo area)
- Power in the car has to be enough to quickly get up to speed on the highway, overtake when passing, and use for an emergency situation (PLENTY of power in the ID4 for these needs)
- Comfortable seats (and decent range) for long drives to visit family (ID4 seats are VERY comfortable and supportive—I think range will be sufficient once charging gets more widespread)
General Things I Noticed:
- I played a lot with Hello ID voice control and was pleasantly surprised at how well it worked after seeing a lot of failures on earlier videos. I told it I was too warm and it lowered the temperature on the driver’s side. My 17-year-old in the passenger seat said, “Hello ID, my butt’s hot” and oddly it not only understood that he wanted his seat warmer turned down/off, but it knew it was the passenger side. That was kind of impressive. Although we tried to use the navigation to get us back to the dealership, it took us to an open field, so there’s that. May have been user error…
- I fiddle with temperature and fan speed all the time in cars. The temperature slider is super easy to use, but to control the fan speed you have to go into the infotainment screen to adjust it, which isn't great. However, I was happy to discover that Hello ID voice control works to control the fan speed.
- No lagging in infotainment system—car had the new update.
- Nice to have the shortcut buttons below the infotainment screen for climate, etc.
- Brakes take a little getting used to because of the regen with softer touch and pushing harder to actually engage brakes. They definitely feel a little squishy because of the design.
- Liked the flashing yellow light in the side mirrors that warned of nearby cars/blindspot.
Things I Was Worried About:
- Not being able to see the screen on a sunny day. It wasn’t a problem except for when too many fingerprints showed up when the sun angle was just right. You could still read the screen even then.
- Being annoyed by the doors opening with just a sensor instead of having a handle that moves. But it was perfectly fine.
Not a Fan of:
- Haptic steering wheel buttons. Felt like I had to push harder than I do for Toyota steering wheel buttons. But I’d get used to it I guess.
- Biggest complaint: The poor design idea of only having two driver side toggles for controlling the windows. Annoying to have to press a smooth surface that lights up rather than an actual button to control the rear windows because it forces you to take your eyes off the road to see if you found the right spot to press and made it light up. And strangely I found the window toggle a little uncomfortable to put the window back up because it has a sharper edge. And you can’t control windows through Hello ID—maybe for safety reasons?
My dealer said dealerships that have at least a minimum of 10 ID4s on order got to take the extensive multihour training to become VW EV specialist, so not all dealerships have an EV specialist yet because they may have few or no preorders yet. Maybe that is why some sales people aren’t as informed yet. Ours were great. The EV specialist was very excited about the ID4. He was also younger.