We poke about in the all-electric Volkswagen ID.4, ahead of its official on-sale date in Singapore

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SINGAPORE

Electric vehicles have been the talk of the town in recent years as Singapore awoke from the ravages of Covid-19 shutdowns and talks of EV early adopter subsidies. From a time when Tesla founder Elon Musk loudly proclaimed that “Singapore does not support electric vehicles” half a decade ago to now, where Tesla is one of the best-selling cars in Singapore, things have changed. And they have changed very quickly.

Volkswagen has plenty of electric vehicles in its stables. From the early e-Golf to its current ID series of electric vehicles, there has been an EV for every size, including the cool ID. Buzz, an electric reinvention of its classic Samba bus.

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Yet, none of them have officially come to the showroom floor in Singapore. After a long “wait and see” period, exacerbated by worldwide supply chain issues in the auto industry, the Volkswagen ID.4 was eventually given an onroad preview earlier in the year in June. There was the promise that it would soon go on sale in Singapore alongside its VW Group cousin, the Skoda Enyaq. The estimated on-sale date? The start of 2024, but Volkswagen Singapore says that you can place bookings from November 2023.

So, what is the Volkswagen ID.4? It has the silhouette of an urban crossover SUV, which is the segment where it will compete for the customer’s attention. Much curvier than the Tiguan, taller than a Golf, and chunkier than a T-Cross, it’s also going to be the brand’s first series production electric vehicle to go on sale in Singapore. 

Powering the car is a single electric motor that drives the rear wheels and with a power output of 204 horsepower, this is a Category B COE electric vehicle. In the grand scheme of things it’s reasonably quick and has more than enough to pop you ahead of the moving traffic, though if you want more… There’s a Volkswagen ID.4 GTX, with power output increased to 299 horsepower and with a 0 to 100km/h sprint time of 6.2 seconds. 

It’s not difficult to think of the GTX as the Golf GTI version of the ID.4, and they even have similar straight line performance. Yet in these times of super fast, supercar-matching accelerating EVs like the Polestar 2 and Tesla Model Y, one can’t help but wonder, did Volkswagen hold back on the GTX to make it just quick enough, but not terrifyingly quick?

But this is a story of the standard ID.4, also known as the ID.4 Pro, not the GTX. So let’s get back on track. 

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So Volkswagen, like so many other brands, have fallen in with naming cars with ‘Pro’ this and ‘Pro’ that. When everything is ‘Pro’, then what is ‘Not Pro’? It’s the ID.4 Pro, but you’re not a professional driver, unless you’re a private-hire car driver, or race car driver that gets paid to try and win races. 

So, when you look past the bright camouflage of the car pictured here, you’ll note that it actually has a lot of curves worked into the body shape. The missing front intake grille is a common feature on EVs, but beyond that, there’s nearly nothing on the body proclaiming this as a car that runs without burning the essence of dead dinosaurs. A tidy ID.4 badge on the rear hatch, and the Pro badges on the front fenders are the only identifiers.

A full-width taillight bar, a trend we saw start here with the Hyundai Avante in 2020 when car prices were still reasonable, gives the rear a signature look. The car’s key proximity sensor also lets the lights play through a subtle, but unique, welcome mode as you approach, that’s great to see after sunset. 

Inside, the cabin is all tidy in the forward-looking manner of EVs. ‘Play’ and ‘Pause’ icons are stamped on the pedals, in case you can’t remember what pedal does what, and the drive selector switch is on a rotating switch on the right side of the instrument cluster. This of course frees up the centre console from switchgear completely, and there is now lots of storage space with configurable storage compartments. The steering wheel is familiar because almost all current-generation Volkswagens use the same design.

There’s an expansive panoramic glass roof overhead and it gets a proper motorised fabric shade that closes up. The boot is nicely sized, but unlike the Volvo C40 Recharge, there’s no storage space under the bonnet.

There are some quirks of the modern user interface, with the biggest annoyance being that of the air conditioning fan and temperature control. They are housed in the main touchscreen and have shortcuts on the touch-sensitive panel directly underneath it. But the shortcut panel icons are not backlit and it’s all black in the dark. The lack of a wrist rest and the high position of the controls also means you need to stab accurately with your finger or end up hitting other controls on the surface. 

On the road, it’s a generally pleasant car to be cruising around in. Reasonably punchy on power, with a ride that’s more about comfort than sportiness, it’s really a spacious, quiet family car. It does feel wider than expected however, and bear in mind that it’s about the same size overall as a Volkswagen Tiguan. In ID.4 Pro specification, It’s not a car that’s designed to be flung with glee into corners, but on highways and rough roads the suspension system does a good job of keeping things under control.

Power efficiency is about as rated on the official specification, and the cool thing about the ID.4 is that it’s clever without over-advertising itself. The heads-up display works in conjunction with the adaptive cruise control to highlight which ‘target’ the ID.4 is tracking, fighter plane style, with a line and arrow that follows any car that drifts into your occupied lane. 

The lane keep assistance also gets a visual cue on the heads-up display. When the car is in danger of drifting out of the lane, the steering wheel’s haptic feedback triggers and the head-up display draws where the car thinks the lane borders are. That way you can easily figure out if the car is correct, or should you just override the car’s suggestion of staying in ‘lane’ if it was just some old painted markings on the road.

The demo car did not have onboard GPS installed but if it did, you’ll see arrows displayed on the HUD pointing out which road you need to turn off at too. 

Electric vehicles are very quickly becoming normal in Singapore, with Tesla first and then BYD aggressively pushing their products. In the luxury sector, BMW’s iX and i7, along with the Mercedes-EQ range of cars, have been doing good business. While at time of writing the ID.4 Pro has not been priced, expect it to sit in the premium product range, which means it’ll be cheaper than a BMW iX3, but more expensive than a BYD Atto 3.

It’s everything you would expect from an electric Volkswagen, but it also has a cheaper cousin coming on sale at the same time with it, in the form of the Skoda Enyaq. 

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Volkswagen ID.4 Pro

Drivetrain type	Full electric
Electric Motor / layout	Single / Front Wheel-Drive
Motor power / torque	204hp / 310Nm
Battery type /net capacity	Lithium ion / 77kWh
Normal Charge Type / Time	11kW AC wallbox / 7.5 hours
Max Fast Charge Type / Time	125kW DC / 38 mins 5 to 80 percent
Electric Range	460km (claimed)
0-100km/h	8.5 seconds
Top Speed	160km/h
Efficiency	17.7 kWh/100km
VES Band	A1 / -S$25,000
Agent	Volkswagen Singapore
Price	To be Confirmed
Availability	Q1 2024
Verdict:	Like most of the Volkswagen range, it’s comfortable and has almost everything you want in an urban car, with a design that’s familiar, yet still forward-looking.

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