2024 VOLKSWAGEN ID.4 REVIEW: MUCH BETTER, WITH AN ASTERISK

With more range and upgraded software, the ID.4 is much better—provided you spring for the higher trims.

I think it’s fair to say that at this point, the Volkswagen ID.4 has a bit of a reputation.  

This was supposed to be the car that kick-started Volkswagen’s all-electric transformation in this country, necessary after an emissions cheating scandal forced the automaker to hit the reset button. But in trying to make the car of the future, Volkswagen’s first effort came out a bit half-baked. 

It had faulty software, a confounding user experience, infamously bad window switches and a so-so interior for its price. Like most so-called “legacy” automakers, Volkswagen has struggled to transition into the high-tech future it wants, and the ID.4 felt like a victim of those ambitions. 

Here’s the thing, though: the ID.4 has hardly been a failure. Last year, the ID.4 made up a promising 11.5% of VW’s total American sales at a time when most electric vehicles are still in the single-digit range. Since VW had the foresight to build the car in the U.S., it can take advantage of EV tax credits while many direct competitors still cannot. And the ID.4 has racked up plenty of awards in its first generation, too.

So if you want to believe that Volkswagen—or any automaker, really—is capable of making progress in the electric car revolution, then the updated 2024 ID.4 should come as great news. Some of its familiar headaches remain. But upgrades like new motors, bigger batteries, more range and vastly better software make the ID.4 more worth your attention than ever before.

(Full Disclosure: Volkswagen sent us a fully charged ID.4 to test for about a week.) 

Driving Experience

My tester was a top-trim 2024 ID.4 Pro S in rear-wheel drive form. Data shows that most EV buyers will be interested in the version with all-wheel drive, which adds nearly $4,000 to the sticker price. But the RWD Pro S is exactly the trim I’d want. It gets you 291 miles of range to the AWD variant’s 263 miles, and I think a good set of snow tires matters more than AWD when conditions get bad anyway.

The Pro S gets the new, larger 82 kWh battery, up from 77 kWh on earlier models. (Lower ID.4 trims in the U.S. get a 62 kWh battery.) It has a larger 12.9-inch display with a number of control and software improvements I’ll go into later. Upper trims get a new electric motor setup with 282 horsepower and 402 lb-ft of torque in RWD form.

Like most crossovers in this price range, it’s no performance car. “Normal” is the operative word to describe its driving dynamics. It’s quick enough in everyday driving, but not absurdly fast, and cornering is predictable and neutral. 

The steering is direct without being overly aggressive. It feels solid at 70 mph and beyond, as any good Autobahn cruiser should be. In nearly all situations, it’s far more fun to drive than your average Honda CR-V or Toyota RAV4. 

Most of the time, I kept my ID.4 in Sport Mode; that dials up the responsiveness and tightens the steering a bit, but it doesn’t make it overwhelmingly fast or truly “sporty” like some EVs. It just makes the car a bit more lively, and I never noticed any meaningful hit to range. Still, other options out there, like the Kia EV6 or even the Model Y, feel more engaging to drive.

I also kept the ID.4’s gear toggle in “B” mode nearly all of the time. It’s not true one-pedal driving, which drives some people nuts. The regenerative braking isn’t nearly as aggressive as how a Tesla Model Y feels. You still need to use the brakes to come to a complete stop, but B mode felt nice and controllable to me. 

Range, Battery Size, Observed Efficiency

Right now, I find that if you have an EV with around 300 miles of range, a home Level 2 charging setup, at least some decent DC fast charging options in your region and a willingness to plan ahead a bit, you shouldn’t face any range anxiety. Of course, that doesn’t apply to everyone everywhere, but it is a sign of progress.

That’s why I was quite happy with the RWD Pro S’ 291 miles of range, which often read well over 300 miles on a 100% charge. I charged the car quite a bit less than I expected to, both in my garage and at a nearby DC. The ID.4 just really goes the distance. It’s great at being a headache-free daily driver, provided those conditions above are met. I even consistently averaged an efficiency rating of 3.5 miles per kWh, a solid number for the class. 

Just know that not all trims of the 2024 ID.4 are created equal. The 62 kWh battery models (ID.4 Standard and ID.4 S) make do with just 206 miles of range, making them decently sized crossovers fine for around-town trips and not much else. 

As you’ll read below, to get the full impact of the ID.4’s upgrades for 2024, you need to go with one of the higher trim levels. 

Charging Experience

As is typically the case, I had no problems pulling 7.3 kW on my home ChargePoint Level 2 plug, which was enough to make the ID.4 road trip-ready overnight. 

I fast-charged at my local EVolve NY station on a 150 kW plug, which to my great delight, started working immediately with the ID.4 on the first attempt. With the bigger battery, the ID.4 is rated to handle up to 175 kW; the smaller one is capped at 140 kW. My big-battery tester plugged in at 16% and just 42 miles of range. 

The charge speed jumped to 135 kW right away, and the fastest speed I saw was 140 kW—within acceptable range. And it got to a 50% charge in just 10 minutes before dropping off to 125 kW by 60%. The car would’ve hit 80% about 25 minutes after I started charging, which seems to be close enough to VW’s 30-minute claim.

There are two ways to look at the above scenario. On one hand, the ID.4 still can’t fast charge as well as some contemporaries, like the aforementioned Model Y, EV6 and Hyundai Ioniq 5. On the other hand, I went from 42 miles to 162 miles—enough for a long drive—in 15 minutes, less time than it took to grab a few groceries. Even if that isn’t class-leading, it’s plenty for most families on the go. 

I’d add that while many competitors are dropping their free fast charging deals lately, VW still includes 500 kWh of charging at Electrify America and three years of Electrify America’s Pass+ membership, as well as plug-and-charge at those stations so you don’t have to fool with credit card readers or payment apps. Volkswagen’s EVs will get NACS adapters to use Tesla Superchargers, too, but not until 2025. 

Exterior And Interior

On the outside, you’d be hard-pressed to tell how new the 2024 ID.4 is. I think the overall shape is handsome, but that ultra-smooth styling has proven polarizing with owners. We expect VW’s future EVs to look much more like conventional cars. I appreciated my tester’s Aurora Red Metallic color, but it’s the only interesting one in the family besides Arctic Blue Metallic; for 2024, your other options are various shades of white, gray, silver and black.

The real story’s found inside. That story is better, but still far from perfect. 

The ID.4 has received withering criticism for its lack of buttons, its over-reliance on its screen for core functions, its touch-sensitive controls that never seem to do what you want and baffling decisions like window switches that only control the front or rear ones at a time. (You can circumvent this by holding down the “REAR” button for a bit, which lets you lower all of them at once.) 

We’ll start with the improvements. The new infotainment layout keeps the climate controls fixed on the screen, so it’s quicker and easier to adjust the temperature on the fly. The gear selector toggle is closer to the steering wheel, not sticking off the driver information screen like before. The improved software experience and voice controls, which I’ll touch on momentarily, make overall operation less painful. Just know those changes come on the Pro and Pro S models; the cheaper Standard and S trims keep the previous generation’s interior. 

And on any ID.4, there’s still no volume knob or other physical audio controls and no easy way to adjust the fan speed without using the screen. The capacitive controls on the steering wheel are as frustrating as ever. Seriously, they should be physical buttons by now. They’re touch-sensitive, so I was constantly flipping through songs and radio stations when my hands brushed across the wheel. Even worse, I’d often engage the cruise control switches by accident. That’s not just poor design, it’s outright dangerous.

Do those controls make the ID.4 a dealbreaker? Honestly, no. After a week of driving, I got used to them, and I found ways to avoid and mitigate their clumsiest moments. But other alternatives out there let you avoid that entirely. 

In general, though, the inside of the ID.4 is a nice enough place to spend time. Rear legroom and headroom are excellent. With the rear seats down, it also boasts 64.2 cubic feet of cargo space; better than an Ioniq 5, but quite a bit less than a Tesla Model Y. Still, I was impressed with the huge haul I pulled off after an IKEA run, and I suspect many families will use the practical ID.4 much the same way. 

Tech and Infotainment

Now we’re really cooking with gas. Er, electrons. 

The old infotainment system in the ID.4 was almost universally loathed, but I’m thrilled to say that despite endless turmoil at the Volkswagen Group’s software division, they actually stuck the landing here. This new OS is a big upgrade from before. Oh, and it's also now fully capable of over-the-air updates, finally. 

The menus have been totally revised. The center screen gets a “home” button like iPhones used to have, wedged in between the climate controls. A set of squares in the top left corner brings up a menu of apps and car functions. All of those can be customized, as can the the main operating screen that displays your map, the current media being played, your range and charging data and more. A bar up top remembers your favorite functions, like drive mode switches in my case. The original ID.4 system was a clunky attempt at emulating a smartphone; this version actually pulls it off.

I experienced none of the lag or bugginess that earlier ID.4s were known for, and overall, the system is pretty easy to figure out. Voice controls are generally excellent as well. VW’s new natural language voice assistant, IDA, can control all sorts of things, like your rear defrosters, interior temperature and even which radio station you want to listen to (“Turn on NPR,” and so on.)

It’s better than others I’ve used, though the Google-powered systems (General Motors, Volvo, etc.) are still the best. The biggest drawback was accidentally triggering the system when I didn’t mean to by saying something too close to its activation phrase. Thankfully, you can set the wake-up phrase to be anything you like, or reduce its detection rate. 

So the software’s better. But the ID.4 still has a control problem, a physical one. Too many controls and commands are still routed through the touch screen, and any overly smartphone-like interface is tough to deal with at 75 mph. That’s even true for your passenger. VW clearly wants you to use the voice system more now, but that isn’t always the fastest or most ideal solution. 

Other tech features include a plug finder built into the navigation system, which works great even though it clearly favors Electrify America stations; excellent EV route-planning and preconditioning; the IQ Drive hands-on driver assistance system; and the ID. Light bar across the dashboard, which changes colors and sweeps in different directions to indicate navigation directions or even your charging status. 

It’d be nice to customize how the haptic and capacitive controls work—i.e., let the dashboard sliders control the air speeds, or have the steering wheel switches be either fully pressable or touch-sensitive. Maybe that’s an over-the-air update away, but those too are taking forever to get to U.S.-market cars. 

But all in all, it’s a big upgrade—provided, again, you spring for the upper-trim 2024 models. The cheaper models, like the Standard one, stick with all of the old setups, including the infotainment system. With any luck, those upgrades will trickle down eventually.

Pricing And Verdict 

All ID.4 models qualify for U.S. EV tax credits of up to $7,500, since they’re all built in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The cheapest one, the Standard, will run you $39,735, which drops into the low $ 30,000 range with the credits. But I do recommend the Pro and Pro S models instead. My Pro S tester, which had no options except the red paint, came in at $51,815. Here in New York with our state credits, I could get it for $42,315, in theory. That’s about five grand less than the average new car price in the U.S. 

I think it’s a decent deal for all you’re getting, especially as it approaches 291 miles. Yes, there are still control issues, but by the end of my week with the updated ID.4, I was able to get past them just fine. The more I drove this EV, the more I liked it. 

But the jury is still out as to whether the ID.4 really represents some electric revolution for VW, as I thought it would back in 2021 when I first spent time with this car. I would’ve thought that in three years’ time, VW would have had a few new EVs for our market, like a smaller crossover or an electric Jetta-type sedan. Instead, the ID.7 has been indefinitely postponed (read: probably canceled), the ID.Buzz has taken so long to get here that it makes a Tesla project seem punctual and we don’t really have a clue what new products are coming next.

I know Volkswagen has more EVs planned, and future ones will likely look less… adventurous than the ID.4. But I think it’s going to be a good while before we hear about any of them officially.

None of that changes the fact that the 2024 ID.4 is a good crossover, and a very good EV. These improvements do show that the VW Group, for all its challenges, is trying—and it’s getting better every time it does. If it wasn’t on your shopping list before, give it another shot now. 

Contact the author: [email protected]

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2024-07-05T15:29:17Z dg43tfdfdgfd