An electrified vacation in the Volkswagen ID.4 Pro
Volkswagen ID.4 Pro: Plug and play?
Price: Starts at $39,995. Conventional wisdom: Car Driver likes the “roomy cabin, smooth ride, decent driving range,” but not that it “lacks driving verve, fussy infotainment interface, anonymous styling.”
Marketer’s pitch: “The ID 4 EV: Winner of the World Car of the Year 2021.” But you can only build and reserve it. Maybe next year?
Reality: Plug and wait a bit, maybe, and hope, and plan, then play.
A vacation from the pump: While going through my list of vehicles for the summer, I spied the new electric SUV/wagon from Volkswagen, the ID.4 Pro.
After some negotiating, the Sturgis Family would be riding in this new EV SUV when visiting Rehoboth Beach, Del. If the experts keep telling us EVs are the future, then professionals should take one outside of their natural habitat, see what happens, and report back.
A quick scan of ChargePoint confirmed that chargers were available around town. The range of the vehicle — an alleged 260 miles — seemed plentiful against the trip — 110 miles.
Let’s do this. First, a fourday diary leading up to the Big Day.
Day 1: The fleet driver left it on the driveway, so I needed to move it into the garage to top up the charge. The vehicle’s interior had grown super hot from sitting in the 90-degree sun. But I wasn’t able to access the HVAC controls; the touchscreen kept telling me “Sorry, this function is not available right now.” And everything is in the touchscreen.
I lowered the windows, thinking that maybe some cool air would help the functionality. That didn’t work immediately, and within seconds I was really sweating.
One confusing thing — there appears to be no start button. The ID.4 was working, but maybe there’s some functionality lacking because of that?
I contacted Volkswagen, and PR reps and engineers said that screen hesitation happens occasionally and usually remedies itself immediately. (They also assured me that the vehicle starts automatically when someone sits in the Driver’s Seat.)
So I went back and started playing around with different functions. When I switched out of Sport mode, things started to work. I don’t imagine the two events were related; it just took time.
Day 2: Well, this doesn’t seem like it’s getting better. Now it’s telling me it can’t start because … oh, oops, I left it plugged in. (Sheepishly and snark- free) “Thanks, car.” (Gets out and unplugs it.)
So I drove to the trail for a run, and had the car parked in the not-as-hot sun for about an hour. When I got back to the ID.4, the media menu didn’t want to work for a second. But it was remedied more along the lines of VW PR’s “immediately,” so, whew. At least I could cool the car down immediately.
Day 2, evening: Sturgis Kid 4.0. wanted to see what the ID.4 was like. We sat inside in the garage and toured the functions before we got moving. But then it didn’t want to go. I twisted the gear selector toward Reverse, and waited. Nothing happened.
I tried twisting forward to Drive. Nope. I tried Reverse again. Nope.
Finally the car shut itself down completely. We sat there in the dim light in the garage waiting for the ID.4 to decide it was ready for us.
After about 5 seconds, it cooperated, and was ready to roll. Geez, this is like owning an air-cooled Beetle; it requires a great deal of patience.
Day 4: The re-initiation into the world of EVs has been pretty bumpy, and so even despite an uneventful Day 3, I’m still nervous about this vacation. But getting to Rehoboth Beach went off without any hitch. The electricity consumption pretty much followed as advertised, and I finished the 110-mile trip with plenty of miles to spare.
And there’s nothing like deciding you’re going to drive without hurrying to make a trip pass much more quickly.
So much to say: We’ll take a ride next week and see how the ID.4 compares to the rest of the universe of vehicles.
The range is a lie: Charging companies will only fill the battery up to 80%. Why? Find out.
So now I have less than 200 miles of range for a 100mile trip. I’m anal enough to worry about that. Luckily I know there is a fast charger 10 miles from my house on the way home. But I’ll be highly annoyed if I have to stop 10 miles from my house and stand around for an hour waiting for it to refill.
Vacation days: The car worked nicely for the other movements I made while on vacation. I found an outlet in the hotel parking garage but the plug wouldn’t stay in, so no luck there.
A car that starts when you sit on the driver’s seat is a giant pain in the butt. How many times does the driver want to leave the vehicle but keep the vehicle running? Think about it — a quick stop at the store, a need to get open the hatch, a quick pit stop while on a trip but the passengers will get back first.
Up to speed: Full tilt only comes using Sport mode. Eco or Comfort don’t offer the high-performance acceleration that one expects from an electric car. But Eco mode is perfectly fine to get the ID.4 up to speed.
On the road: The handling is fine, but nothing to get excited about. Even in Sport mode it doesn’t have a lot of zip.
In Sport mode, it just tightened up but there was not a lot of joy. Maybe something about the heavy batteries near the rear wheels.
Friends and stuff: Plenty of room for a family of four adults to take a three-day vacation with lots of stuff. Beyond that it might get a little crowded.
Legroom, headroom and footroom are all generous. Sturgis kid 4.0 reports the seat was firm and straight, though. And the middle seat in has just as much legroom as the rest, and there’s no hump at all.
Play some tunes: Sound from the system is awesome.
I could only get a few displays from my iPhone onto the screen, so that didn’t work well.
Volkswagen definitely bought a Tesla and copied generously — touchscreen operates everything. Just a few buttons on the outside.
Nothing will operate when the vehicle is in motion, and things don’t operate easily when it’s not.
There’s home button, like on an iPhone, so once you’re used to that, it becomes easier. But all the HVAC and safety settings are in there, plus the media. Buttons for climate, safety features, parking and home.
A stalk operates the wipers and buttons to the left operate the lights. And of course a turn signal stalk.
Keeping warm and cool: It’s all about the touchscreen as well, and that’s not my favorite way of doing things. But the “buttons” are big and easy to see. Max AC was required for most of a long trip, but again it was 90 degrees. I wonder how this would handle that Southwest heat wave.
Fortunately, Sturgis Kid 1.0 and Son-in-Law 1.0 just returned from a belated honeymoon road trip through the desert Southwest, in temperatures of 110 degrees or more. She reports that a Buick Encore really needed the AC on medium or medium-high. So herein may lie another EV pitfall.
From the rear, Sturgis Kid 4.0 reported that the low vents in the console don’t help cooling much. And it gets really hot high in the back. The front vents also pointed low, so that didn’t help; I had to keep the defrost control on for much of the trip, and of course the windshield started to fog a little.
Electricity consumption: I didn’t drive my usual full-tilt way, keeping it from 70-75 on the highway and moving more gently around town. I was mostly able to keep the range as advertised.
Night shift: The lights sit frustratingly low. Leave the automatic high beams on because you’ll need them as often as you can get them.
Hot stuff: On Day 5, while at the beach, I hunted down a place to plug it in.
Took six hours. When I got there, my 260 miles of range was limited to 80% of the total battery life, so I only had 194 miles of range. And it was hot as blazes in the ID.4 Pro. Now, it was 93 degrees in Rehoboth, but still, the materials and the colors need to be much lighter and reflective, because so much energy is going to be devoted to cooling the vehicle that every little bit helps.
Indoorsy: On Day 6, after having the car parked in a garage overnight, the range now read 220 miles, so obviously the ID.4 was factoring that heat in as well.