this is volkswagen id4 thank you to vw for sponsoring this video they wanted us to
put it through its paces and figure out what we think about it now you know we don't really do
car reviews that's not exactly what it is that we do we tell stories but it turns out
there's actually an important story here one that has not been told nearly enough
so after two weeks with the id4 over 1300 miles driven i'm going to tell you absolutely everything
you need to know about this car whether you're a fan of vw or not or shopping for a crossover suv
stay till the end because i can almost guarantee you're gonna learn some pretty surprising things
so let's do a deep dive into the volkswagen id4 on this episode of tuba davinci
some people love electric cars some people hate them and for some it's strictly about better tech
or better value regardless of the powertrain so to answer if this car is right for you we
should probably talk about what this car is and what it isn't everyone's going to be looking for
something a little different but let me tell you what the past year has looked like for our family
i'm married and my wife and i have two sons ages four and one one of our great comforts during
this last year has been visiting my parents in northern california now this 500-mile road trip is
definitely not for the faint of heart especially with two young kids but it
actually best illustrates the greatest strengths of this car it's an absolute comfort cruiser
with very low levels of road and wind noise incredibly comfortable seats and a suspension
tuned for comfort these sorts of things aren't obvious on a short test drive but by hour three
of a road trip you'll know what i'm talking about having kids it's also the exact right size of car
no small wonder why crossover suvs are such a popular segment here in north america
you know shoulder room's not it's not like a ton of space but totally oh yeah i can easily
fit i'm about 5 11 180 pounds and there's plenty of room for me with two car seats
equally the space behind the second row was more than enough for our various car seat strollers
and various odds and ends we packed for most of our adventures two things i do wish the id4 had
was a deeper inner trunk cabin because the 84 only has a small shallow cavity where when opened it
does add a little more space also oddly absent is a front trunk or frunk for gas car owners you're
either thinking no big deal or what's that but for ev owners a frunk is another greatly appreciated
storage area i really hope to see future evs from vw come with fronks i mentioned that this car was
great for road trips but to be a great road tripping ev it's not enough to be super quiet
and comfortable you have to charge quickly this is where almost every review i've seen the id4 really
gets this wrong so charging with electrify america is kind of a function of which car you have
and since this is just a long-term rental for me what i have is i have the electrify america app
and so what i can do is it says plug-in first okay i'll do that beefy cable and
if you look that's the normal j1772 and then here is the full ccs fast charging port okay
so if you look here it says you can receive notifications about your session via text so the
way i normally do road trips is i'll take the car and plug it in and then go walk over for dinner
or lunch whatever the case might be in which case when your car is almost fully charged you'd love
to know that so you could wrap it up grab the kids and come back it's probably a pretty pretty
good moment as well to check out the light bar and what's cool is the solid part tells you about you
know it's 40 percent complete all right so what we're going to do now is we are going to calculate
the charge speed every 30 seconds we're going to write the kilowatt speed that's being delivered
and the charge complete percentage that the car is reporting so between those two pieces of data
we'll be able to see how the charge tapers over time so the vw id4 has a max charge speed of 125
kilowatts when you fill gasoline in a gas car the station pumps gasoline at a fixed speed
until the tank is full and the pump shuts off but it's quite a bit more complicated with charging an
ev all right so once i gathered all the data i was able to see that volkswagen's claim that their car
charges from 5 to 80 percent in about 38 minutes was absolutely true in fact my id4 charged
even a little bit faster than that filling up the battery is a bit like filling up an airplane
when the airplane is empty passengers have all the overhead luggage space they want
they don't bother others to move to reach their seats and things move pretty quickly
but near the end passengers need to start searching for overhead cargo space they might
need to ask some people to get up and move in order to reach their seat and things slow down
quite a bit sure it's vastly more complicated with batteries but the basic science is that batteries
when they get closer to full you have to wind down the charge speed to best protect the battery's
long-term health and durability okay science lesson over but if you listen to nothing else
don't let the 125 kilowatt charge speed worry you the id4 is a well competent road tripper
so the 84 is shockingly good value and one of the great options for someone looking for the
space and practicality a crossover affords and if you're coming from a gasoline crossover this
value will be even more striking have you seen the price of a gallon of gasoline lately some of
the really cool optional features available for the id4 include the massive panoramic glass roof
another optional feature i'd opt for are the massaging front seats this one surprised me
as it's an option usually only found on really premium cars this looks like conventional door
handle but it actually doesn't move at all it's just a button underneath you click and it opens
speaking of that check out the sound of this door when you close it listen to that
i've always liked how german cars sound when you close them also the the style of this car you can
notice there's kind of a two-tone this is more of a silver and then the black accents that pop
off of this i had a blue one earlier i think this white and black is my favorite and that
kind of cleanness to the design carries all the way through to the back everything's led of
course it's a ev you don't waste electricity on filament bulbs here is your charge door
right here so you got your top and then you got your full ccs if you want to do fast charging
every car has that thing about it that makes it really special right teslas are
very fast accelerating this car has the best turning radius i've ever seen look at this
this is the turning radius of the car
it turns on a freaking dime look at this so the id4 is amazing right well let's shift gears and
talk about some of the cars shortcomings if you're coming from a gasoline crossover like the rav4 or
crv you'll likely find the id4 to be pretty zippy but if you're coming from another ev the id4 is
not a fast car and it's definitely engineered for practicality affordability and comfort
0 to 60 miles per hour comes in roughly 7.6 seconds which again is pretty good for a family
gasoline crossover but kind of slow for an ev the reality is if you're looking for a performance
crossover the id4 probably isn't for you if you're really keen on the id4 and are looking
for a little more power there's good news as the all-wheel drive model will definitely help in that
regard so maybe that's something you might want to consider otherwise there are probably a few other
faster ev choices better suited for you that being said i see the id4 as a great alternative
to gasoline crossovers that is who i am hoping is watching this video if you've been thinking
about buying a new honda crv or a toyota rav4 do yourself a favor and go test drive a knight e4 it
packs similar features plus has the hassle-free benefits of an ev and you can charge it at home
and never visit a gas station again now the tech isn't futuristic or cutting edge
you're not going to get dash cam recordings or built-in google maps but with these performance
enhancements it's usable and gets the job done couple that with android auto and apple carplay
and you'll basically spend all your time letting your phone be the interface a really exciting
announcement recently was that the electrify america charging app is coming to apple carplay
and android auto in my 300 miles with the id4 and 10 charge stops i've made i barely had any issues
now the one piece of advice i would have is to avoid the 50 kilowatt fast chargers because while
you can fill your id4 from five to eighty percent in about 38 minutes it could easily take twice as
long on a 50 kilowatt charger so think of yourself as an explorer mapping your course it's kind of
what driving ev is like it's seriously fun and ev road tripping is something i highly recommend so
get out the charging station app and do your best to hit fast charging stations so hopefully now
you'll know just about how long it takes to charge and you'll be better prepared for some seriously
comfortable adventures so that's my take on the id4 the future identity of volkswagen
if you're interested in the car i definitely recommend getting out there and driving one
but if you really want to see what this thing can do remember you need some open road
so what do you think sound off in the comments section below and again a huge thank you to
volkswagen for sponsoring this show and to all of you for making this possible
so until next week i'm ricky with two davinci and just remember the future is gonna be awesome
you