**Driving Experience and Blind Spots**

When driving in town being an SUV you're raised up so you get a decent view forwards however this pillar does create quite a blind spot and the back window is quite small as well which is a bit annoying when you're maneuvering. You do have front and rear parking cameras which help out but it'd be better if overall visibility was just a bit better. This car being heavy does have relatively firm suspension it's not terrible but you do feel the bumps a little bit more than you might expect in a car such as this however the faster you go the more it irons out the surfaces in the road.

**Steering and Braking**

What is good though is the steering is nice and light and of course because there's no gearbox or engine you can just drive it along on the throttle alone also when you're driving around town the brakes are pretty good sometimes in electric cars they can be a bit jerky but these aren't bad at all and I can flick the switch here to put it into more aggressive regen so when I lift off it will slow the car more steadily. However, it's not quite as abrupt a slowdown as you can get in something like a Nissan Leaf where you can pretty much drive it along on one pedal alone also as you'll probably notice I've lifted off the accelerator for quite a while the car is coasting it will not go to complete standstill it will just keep on moving forward like an old-fashioned automatic car.

**Turning Circle and Handling**

But, the turning circle though it's very good on this car so it is just 10 meters which is pretty similar to something like a Volkswagen Up. I'm going to try and show you just how good the turning circle is now. I can pretty much do a U-turn in this track to check it safe look at this I mean that is nuts to be able to do that really is quite impressive and I didn't drop off the track at all. When you need to go faster, you got really good pickup from the electric motor that's the great thing about electric motors instant power.

**Range and Real-World Performance**

I'm doing 50 km/h it this only takes to get to 70 not bad at all and actually when you get into speed this is quite a relaxing car. The seats are comfortable, you do get a bit of noise from the wind and a very little bit of noise from the tires but you're only really hearing those because there's no droning sound from an internal combustion engine so your ears just pick up on those bits more really it's quite a relaxing car to travel in. In terms of doing distance what is the range well, this car is averaging 2.8 miles per kilowatt hour of battery used it's got a 77 kilowatt hour battery so that works out to 260 miles of real-world range which is its only about 70 really of what Volkswagen says it should do not brilliant then but livable.

**Twisty Roads and Launching into Sports Mode**

As for driving this thing on a twisty road well because it's heavy it's a sports car but because all the weight is low down it doesn't lean that much in the bends and you've got a perfect 50/50 weight distribution so it's very neutral and balanced and easy to drive. And even if you do think silly like suddenly have to turn the wheel quickly or lift off the accelerator because you think you need to slow down it doesn't do anything untoward like step out of line. It is fairly decent to drive if you want an electric car that is fun, you're probably better off with something like a Tesla Model 3.

**Final Verdict**

Let's see what this car is like when it comes to launching into sports mode so I get maximum acceleration I'm going to floor it see what we do they tell me at my specialist stomach gear let's do this come on well you do Volkswagen says just over eight seconds what's the reality there's a sixty oh not sixty seven point four nine seconds I'll take that. Overall, I reckon you should shortlist the ID4 it really is a good all-round family-friendly practical electric SUV and therefore a genuine cop-chaser.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enis the new volkswagen id4 a chafer you can't say that matt why not it's rude it's not rude a chafer is a big beetle and this is like a big beetle the original volkswagen beetle was the car the people this will be the new car of the people but it's an suv so it's bigger hence big beetle and i wanted a fun analogy for the intro to this video so i googled big beetle and the first thing it came back with was chafer apparently it's a member of the scarab family and grows up to three centimeters long and cockchafer means big beetle in old english and we're in england anyway i'm matt watson and you're watching car wow and i'm going to review a chafer buying a new car then head to car wow and my team will help you find your next car at a fair price car wow your one-stop car buying comparison site let's start this video by talking about the price so at the moment there is only one version of id4 you can buy in the uk it's called the first edition and that's what this car is and it starts from forty thousand eight hundred pounds but look at this you can save four thousand and fifty two pounds for one if you buy through car wow though i need to explain something to you that number includes a 3 000 pound government grant for plugging vehicles and you can get that regardless of whether you go through car wow or not so really the actual car by saving is 1052 pounds i really do hate the way it's included together in our saving figure but it's just the way our website works with how we take the data in so apologies for that now in future you will be able to get other versions of id4 which will be cheaper and the savings might change and to check out the very latest offers just click on the pop out banner up there to get a car wow let's talk about the design of the id4 because i've got to tell you i'm not the biggest fan i actually like the look of the id3 but the design elements don't seem to work so well on this larger suv body it's just a bit blobby and heavy looking yeah they're giving it a roof spoiler to make it seem a bit sporty you've got a full light bar at the back and they don't think whether you get the model designation in the center rather than to the side like on all modern cars but look at the sheer expanse that you've got here and they've tried to make it look a little bit more interesting by using different materials and shapes but it is quite a bulbous looking car move down the side this is a first edition model so it's got quite a lot of kit on it such as 20-inch alloy wheels as standard silver roof bars silver bits here and contrasting black roof you won't get that on the entry-level models when they come out now from the side this car it just looks so much like a peugeot 5008 doesn't it you see that but when you move around the front it's not as good looking as the peugeot it's got quite a big heavy set look to it and quite a high bonnet which is unusual because there's no engine under there i do like the fact that they've done this thing with the daytime running lights the way they run into this strip that goes all the way over to the other one that's quite nice but once again the front it's quite a deep looking front end there's no grille of course because there's no engine just some vents there to cool the battery bits and pieces these vents are real so there's no faker on the car let's check out inside see if it's a bit better once again it's very much like the id3 in here as well i do quite like the design it's interesting it's very minimalist feels modern i do like the cream steering wheel as well even though it's going to get dirty but you can soon clean that it brightens up the cabin so does this brown trim and the velour on the seats you get for these first edition models i like it i also like the fact there's not many buttons from an aesthetic point of view from a user point of view not so much you see you have to control things just basically using the central touch screen and these slider buttons here so if i want to use the heater i can slide that like that i can do that slide it up and down and increase the temperature if i want to do the heated seat i can double tap it but when you're driving it's just a bit too hard to actually accurately hit those sliders now if i want to change the fan speed i do have to press this button to bring up the climate control and then go into the climate control and then funny around with the fan and also the volley control is a slider there as well which i don't like i'd rather have a dial now you can just use the buttons on the steering wheel because they control loads of stuff but they're very weird to use because they're sort of touch sensitive and have like a haptic feedback to them so they like vibrate when you press them like your mobile phone it's all a bit confusing as to whether you press them in and they vibrate or whether you just slide and it's just not great the normal buttons that you had on the steering wheel in the old golf was just easier to use now you've got this digital driver's display which i think provides all the information you really need so it's fairly clear very simple and you can change the view on it for just as you like it that's fine i quite like that i also like this rocker switch there for your driving mode select button monks are going to totally copy that from the bmw i3 one slight problem with it on this car though is that the rim of the steering wheel blocks the actual rocker switch so until you've learned which way is which you have to lean across like to see oh it's forward for drive and it's towards you that for reverse and i'll press it in or jiggle it a bit to get neutral there perfect now one of the things about this car is that it has voice command so you should be able to control most things just by saying things to the car hello id what can i do for you set temperature to 21 degrees i've got what is effectively the volkswagen kaleidoscope of doom look it's just buffering i'll just freeze to death why do you try and figure it out this voice command system in the ids is very very glitchy they haven't sorted it out yet so i won't bother with it the rest of the infotainment system is fairly decent so it's got all the functions you need it's easy to navigate it's not the smoothest or the quickest system on the market but it's okay you've got inbuilt navigation but you're not really going to use that instead you're just going to hook up your phone and use android auto or apple carplay to tell you the truth overall i think the infotainment system in the new mercedes eqa is better than this system in the id4 and if you want to see my full in-depth video review of the mercedes just click on the pop-up button just put a link popping out in the top right hand corner of the screen click on that you can watch the review of that car let's move on to something that this car is a little bit better at and that's cubby spaces here to remove the keys is a center console which you can use cupholders but if you don't want to use it for cup holdery you can actually remove it look you can you can remove it and then you've got this big cubby area there there's also some more storage underneath here and you can actually move these little dividers around just so you can have them exactly as you want and then there's some usb charging ports there another little tray there and that has wireless charging on it also check this out right door bins decent size and the bases lined with felt to stop things rattling around like your keys when you've got them in there i also like this feature yes we have individual armrests and the driving position is really good and there's plenty of adjustment as well volkswagen does decent to driving positions with lots of adjustments it doesn't really matter if you're big or small you will be able to find a position that you're happy with in this car what you may not be so happy with though is the quality of some of the materials all lack thereof so one you've got squidgy and squidgy here some of the other bits and pieces around the cabin are just a little bit cheap and nasty feeling which isn't becoming of a car this expensive hmm anyway let's forget about that for now and go check out the back seats right there will be no complaints here apart from okay yeah look scratchy plastic's here in the back that's a complaint but i think that's all i'm gonna moan about because look loads of knee room loads of headroom also if you need to carry three people at once it's really good that this car has a flat floor because you've got batteries underneath here rather than an exhaust system and a prop shaft for sending power to the rear wheels so look if you're in the middle seat it's playing room for your feet headroom's still good here it's quite a wide car it's very very impressive actually for carrying people in the back you've got armrests here but they've gone and done that annoying thing where the cupholders aren't covered so you had to put your elbow in it which is annoying it's less annoying is this like real windows they go all the way down which is good on a hot day if you want to lean out in terms of other areas of practicality the door bins fairly large back there so they can take this big bottle see that's good you've also got some usb charging ports there and look a couple of pockets on the seat backs oh and there's your eye to fix anger points if you want to fit a baby seat in here and there's plenty of room to fit even one of those rear facing bulky baby seats i like the fact that the covers for the eyes to fix anchor points they just flip down out so you're not going to lose them so once you're done with them you can quite easily snap them back up like that so pretty decent this guy's in the back let's go check out the boot so even though this particular model i have here is the first edition which is supposedly well specified it doesn't have an electric tailgate and the actual handle to open the boot is down here so it does get covered in road grime and that will end up on your fingers now i don't mind not having an electric tailgate because look you can shut a bit really quickly and open it quickly and it can't open a boot really i mean come on anyhow the boot capacity is pretty blooming big actually 543 liters of space not quite as big as the normal petrol powered volkswagen tick on that has 615 liters of space and if you click on the pop-up button i'll put in the top right-hand corner of the screen to be popping out now click on that you can watch my in-depth video review of the tiguan moving on to this car though bit of a load lip to lift stuff over it's not too bad and because it's quite high this boot because it's a tall car you're not having to like bend down and then lift stuff over now in terms of the practicality underneath here look you have a little area for storing your charging cables you've got a 12-volt socket here some random thing to tie something with there you've got a ski hatch look so oh come on ski hatch you can fold down the rear seats nice and easy like that look there we go ah there like and you've got this big huge space but i know what you're thinking look at that big ridge so it's gonna be hard to slide things to the front ah oh dear it's stuck i can't possibly do that now now if you look here you can see this ridge here you can see that this car is available with a false floor but this one doesn't have it which once again is surprising when it's the first edition model supposed to be well specified you can get it with a false floor and this is what it looks like surprised it's not standard though especially at this price that brings down to five or nine things about the id4 instead of the normal way of having four electric window switches for each window you only have two and if you want to control the rears you have to press this touch sensitive button to toggle to operate the rear windows and then press it again to toggle to operate the fronts what a rubbish idea as this is an electric car there's no engine under the bonnet so obviously volkswagen has made full use of that space and created a really nice big front boot oh dear not so much there are a few areas where i can store my car wire sticks of truth look i can just put that one under here like that that's good this guy can probably go in here somewhere can we go in there yes that's all right in there that one i can sort of lay there and maybe this one will fit somewhere down there perfect i'll take it all back it's not bad at all in the good old days volkswagen used to hide the reversing camera behind the rear vw badge when you put the car in reverse that badge would pop up and the camera would then poke out and then when you went forwards it would close down and it would always keep it clean because it was covered however they'd now move the reversing camera down here where it's really low close to the roads it gets covered in road grime it does have a little washer jet for it but it's still not as good as just keeping the camera completely hidden like before i often slag off peugeots and citroens for having such small glove boxes because they can't be bothered to relocate the fuse box from here when they move the steering wheel over to the right now you wouldn't only have that on a volkswagen they'd bother to do that but look not anymore look how small that glove box is they've clearly left the fuse box in there it's like they're penny pinching and cost saving i mean what is going on this is not very volkswagen this car may not only look a bit bloated but it is actually physically bloated it weighs in at over 2.1 tons which is really quite a lot and weight affects the car's efficiency its handling and also its comfort levels because you have to fit it with stiffer suspension to cope with extra weight it's not all negative though here's five good things about this car the stitching on the back of the seat may look like a design feature but it's actually functional look this is a little pocket perfect for your mobile phone look at that and then you can just sit back and look at someone's instagram so this is my instagram matt watson cars put a link in the ping comment follow me there please lots of behind the scenes stuff yeah good idea though though the door handles don't operate like normal door handles in there is actually a switch and you just pull on it huh the door opens so you're not having to have a jolly good tug but you might want to have a tug if for some reason your battery's flat and none of this works because you can still get in look if you put some pressure on it look you can see still operates like a door handle and there's even a little key there so you can unlock it manually if you have to this car has something called an id light and it's an led strip that runs the length of the dashboard by the windscreen and it interacts with you to alert you of certain things for instance if someone calls you on your mobile phone it'll start flashing if the emergency brake system realizes that you need to brake it'll flash at you to get you to break also when you're using things like the climate control it flashes up to just so that you've activated it and when you're on your satellite navigation it will indicate to show that you're needing to leave a junction soon this car has drum brakes at the back which according to volkswagen is a good thing you see electric cars hardly ever use their rear brakes because they do a lot of regen braking and so their back brake discs get all rusty looks terrible and eventually they might need replacing so volkswagen decides to just fit drum brakes instead and then they don't have to be serviced at all they'll last the life of the car i hope it's true and i've not just been repeating some pr spin check it out look i suffix anchor points on the front passenger seat which is handy if you want to carry a child seat here in the front as well keep your eye on the baby while you're driving now let's talk about the motor so at the moment there's only one version of id4 available it has a rear mounted 204 horsepower electric motor there will be a four wheel drive version which has another motor at the front combined it'll have 306 horsepower there'll also be a lower power rear drive version with around 148 horsepower this car comes with a usable battery pack of 77 kilowatt hours now to charge it if you use a three pin socket like this it can take you over 30 hours if you have a 7.5 kilowatt wall box at home that'll take 11 hours if you have the upgraded 11 kilowatt hour war box with phase free charging that'll take eight hours this car can actually charge at 125 kilowatts and if you can find one of those charges it can go from empty to 80 full in just 40 minutes now the range for this car with a full battery according to volkswagen at least 310 miles though i think that's quite optimistic now if you want to keep up to date with all the latest on the id4 and the different battery sizes and the different motors as vw releases them what i've done is put a link up there in the top right hand corner of the screen you click on that you can actually configure an id4 and then it'll give you the full range of choices that are currently available to buy this car with so then what's the id4 like for driving in town being an suv you're raised up so you get a decent view forwards however this pillar does create quite a blind spot and the back window is quite small as well which is a bit annoying when you're maneuvering you do have front and rear parking cameras which help out but it'd be better if overall visibility was just a bit better this car being heavy does have relatively firm suspension it's not terrible but you do feel the bumps a little bit more than you might expect in a car such as this however the faster you go the more it irons out the surfaces in the road what is good though is the steering is nice and light and of course because there's no gearbox or engine you can just drive it along on the throttle alone also when you're driving around town the brakes are pretty good sometimes in electric cars they can be a bit jerky but these aren't bad at all and i can flick the switch here to put it into more aggressive regen so when i lift off it will slow the car more steadily however it's not quite as abrupt a slowdown as you can get in something like a nissan leaf where you can pretty much drive it along on one pedal alone also as you'll probably notice i've lifted off the accelerator for quite a while the castle is coasting it will not go to complete standstill it will just keep on moving forward like an old-fashioned automatic car when really it's better to be able to actually stop the car just by lifting off wish it would do that i can't fault the turning circle though it's very good on this car so it is just 10 meters which is pretty similar to something like a volkswagen up and i'm going to try and show you just how good the turning circle is now i can pretty much do a ue in this track to check it safe look at this i mean that is nuts to be able to do that really is quite impressive and i didn't drop off the track at all then and then when you need to go faster you got really good pickup from the electric motor that's the great thing about electric motors instant power so i'm doing 50 floor it this only takes to get to 70. not bad at all and actually when you get into speed this is quite a relaxing car the seats are comfortable you do get a bit of noise from the wind and a very little bit of noise from the tyres but you're only really hearing those because there's no droning sound from an internal combustion engine so your ears just pick up on those bits more really it's quite a relaxing car to travel in and in terms of doing distance what is the range well this car is averaging 2.8 miles per kilowatt hour of battery used it's got a 77 kilowatt hour battery so that works out too quick mat maths come on work to 260 miles of real world range which is it's only about 70 really of what volkswagen says it should do not brilliant then but livable as for driving this thing on a twisty road well because it's heavy it's a sports car but because all the weight is low down it doesn't lean that much in the bends and you've got a perfect 50 50 weight distribution so it's very neutral and balanced and easy to drive and even if you do think silly like suddenly have to turn the wheel quickly or lift off the accelerator because you think you need to slow down it doesn't do anything untoward like step out a line it's quite safe secure fun absolutely not no way shape or form but it is fairly decent to drive if you want an electric car that is fun you're probably better off with something like a tesla model 3. and if you click on the pop-up button up there you can watch my full in-depth video review of that car now speaking of fun let's see what this car is like when it comes to launching into sports mode so i get maximum acceleration i'm going to floor it see what we do they tell me at my specialist stomach gear let's do this come on well you do volkswagen says just over eight seconds what's the reality there's a sixty oh not sixty seven point four nine seconds i'll take that so then what's my final verdict on the new volkswagen id4 should you avoid it should you consider it should he shortlist it or should he just go right ahead and buy it well i reckon you should shortlist the id4 it really is a good all-round family-friendly practical electric suv and therefore a genuine cop chafer hope you all enjoyed the video if you did please give it a like click on those windows there you can watch some more videos and if you click on that box there you go the car works how much money you can save on new caris the new volkswagen id4 a chafer you can't say that matt why not it's rude it's not rude a chafer is a big beetle and this is like a big beetle the original volkswagen beetle was the car the people this will be the new car of the people but it's an suv so it's bigger hence big beetle and i wanted a fun analogy for the intro to this video so i googled big beetle and the first thing it came back with was chafer apparently it's a member of the scarab family and grows up to three centimeters long and cockchafer means big beetle in old english and we're in england anyway i'm matt watson and you're watching car wow and i'm going to review a chafer buying a new car then head to car wow and my team will help you find your next car at a fair price car wow your one-stop car buying comparison site let's start this video by talking about the price so at the moment there is only one version of id4 you can buy in the uk it's called the first edition and that's what this car is and it starts from forty thousand eight hundred pounds but look at this you can save four thousand and fifty two pounds for one if you buy through car wow though i need to explain something to you that number includes a 3 000 pound government grant for plugging vehicles and you can get that regardless of whether you go through car wow or not so really the actual car by saving is 1052 pounds i really do hate the way it's included together in our saving figure but it's just the way our website works with how we take the data in so apologies for that now in future you will be able to get other versions of id4 which will be cheaper and the savings might change and to check out the very latest offers just click on the pop out banner up there to get a car wow let's talk about the design of the id4 because i've got to tell you i'm not the biggest fan i actually like the look of the id3 but the design elements don't seem to work so well on this larger suv body it's just a bit blobby and heavy looking yeah they're giving it a roof spoiler to make it seem a bit sporty you've got a full light bar at the back and they don't think whether you get the model designation in the center rather than to the side like on all modern cars but look at the sheer expanse that you've got here and they've tried to make it look a little bit more interesting by using different materials and shapes but it is quite a bulbous looking car move down the side this is a first edition model so it's got quite a lot of kit on it such as 20-inch alloy wheels as standard silver roof bars silver bits here and contrasting black roof you won't get that on the entry-level models when they come out now from the side this car it just looks so much like a peugeot 5008 doesn't it you see that but when you move around the front it's not as good looking as the peugeot it's got quite a big heavy set look to it and quite a high bonnet which is unusual because there's no engine under there i do like the fact that they've done this thing with the daytime running lights the way they run into this strip that goes all the way over to the other one that's quite nice but once again the front it's quite a deep looking front end there's no grille of course because there's no engine just some vents there to cool the battery bits and pieces these vents are real so there's no faker on the car let's check out inside see if it's a bit better once again it's very much like the id3 in here as well i do quite like the design it's interesting it's very minimalist feels modern i do like the cream steering wheel as well even though it's going to get dirty but you can soon clean that it brightens up the cabin so does this brown trim and the velour on the seats you get for these first edition models i like it i also like the fact there's not many buttons from an aesthetic point of view from a user point of view not so much you see you have to control things just basically using the central touch screen and these slider buttons here so if i want to use the heater i can slide that like that i can do that slide it up and down and increase the temperature if i want to do the heated seat i can double tap it but when you're driving it's just a bit too hard to actually accurately hit those sliders now if i want to change the fan speed i do have to press this button to bring up the climate control and then go into the climate control and then funny around with the fan and also the volley control is a slider there as well which i don't like i'd rather have a dial now you can just use the buttons on the steering wheel because they control loads of stuff but they're very weird to use because they're sort of touch sensitive and have like a haptic feedback to them so they like vibrate when you press them like your mobile phone it's all a bit confusing as to whether you press them in and they vibrate or whether you just slide and it's just not great the normal buttons that you had on the steering wheel in the old golf was just easier to use now you've got this digital driver's display which i think provides all the information you really need so it's fairly clear very simple and you can change the view on it for just as you like it that's fine i quite like that i also like this rocker switch there for your driving mode select button monks are going to totally copy that from the bmw i3 one slight problem with it on this car though is that the rim of the steering wheel blocks the actual rocker switch so until you've learned which way is which you have to lean across like to see oh it's forward for drive and it's towards you that for reverse and i'll press it in or jiggle it a bit to get neutral there perfect now one of the things about this car is that it has voice command so you should be able to control most things just by saying things to the car hello id what can i do for you set temperature to 21 degrees i've got what is effectively the volkswagen kaleidoscope of doom look it's just buffering i'll just freeze to death why do you try and figure it out this voice command system in the ids is very very glitchy they haven't sorted it out yet so i won't bother with it the rest of the infotainment system is fairly decent so it's got all the functions you need it's easy to navigate it's not the smoothest or the quickest system on the market but it's okay you've got inbuilt navigation but you're not really going to use that instead you're just going to hook up your phone and use android auto or apple carplay to tell you the truth overall i think the infotainment system in the new mercedes eqa is better than this system in the id4 and if you want to see my full in-depth video review of the mercedes just click on the pop-up button just put a link popping out in the top right hand corner of the screen click on that you can watch the review of that car let's move on to something that this car is a little bit better at and that's cubby spaces here to remove the keys is a center console which you can use cupholders but if you don't want to use it for cup holdery you can actually remove it look you can you can remove it and then you've got this big cubby area there there's also some more storage underneath here and you can actually move these little dividers around just so you can have them exactly as you want and then there's some usb charging ports there another little tray there and that has wireless charging on it also check this out right door bins decent size and the bases lined with felt to stop things rattling around like your keys when you've got them in there i also like this feature yes we have individual armrests and the driving position is really good and there's plenty of adjustment as well volkswagen does decent to driving positions with lots of adjustments it doesn't really matter if you're big or small you will be able to find a position that you're happy with in this car what you may not be so happy with though is the quality of some of the materials all lack thereof so one you've got squidgy and squidgy here some of the other bits and pieces around the cabin are just a little bit cheap and nasty feeling which isn't becoming of a car this expensive hmm anyway let's forget about that for now and go check out the back seats right there will be no complaints here apart from okay yeah look scratchy plastic's here in the back that's a complaint but i think that's all i'm gonna moan about because look loads of knee room loads of headroom also if you need to carry three people at once it's really good that this car has a flat floor because you've got batteries underneath here rather than an exhaust system and a prop shaft for sending power to the rear wheels so look if you're in the middle seat it's playing room for your feet headroom's still good here it's quite a wide car it's very very impressive actually for carrying people in the back you've got armrests here but they've gone and done that annoying thing where the cupholders aren't covered so you had to put your elbow in it which is annoying it's less annoying is this like real windows they go all the way down which is good on a hot day if you want to lean out in terms of other areas of practicality the door bins fairly large back there so they can take this big bottle see that's good you've also got some usb charging ports there and look a couple of pockets on the seat backs oh and there's your eye to fix anger points if you want to fit a baby seat in here and there's plenty of room to fit even one of those rear facing bulky baby seats i like the fact that the covers for the eyes to fix anchor points they just flip down out so you're not going to lose them so once you're done with them you can quite easily snap them back up like that so pretty decent this guy's in the back let's go check out the boot so even though this particular model i have here is the first edition which is supposedly well specified it doesn't have an electric tailgate and the actual handle to open the boot is down here so it does get covered in road grime and that will end up on your fingers now i don't mind not having an electric tailgate because look you can shut a bit really quickly and open it quickly and it can't open a boot really i mean come on anyhow the boot capacity is pretty blooming big actually 543 liters of space not quite as big as the normal petrol powered volkswagen tick on that has 615 liters of space and if you click on the pop-up button i'll put in the top right-hand corner of the screen to be popping out now click on that you can watch my in-depth video review of the tiguan moving on to this car though bit of a load lip to lift stuff over it's not too bad and because it's quite high this boot because it's a tall car you're not having to like bend down and then lift stuff over now in terms of the practicality underneath here look you have a little area for storing your charging cables you've got a 12-volt socket here some random thing to tie something with there you've got a ski hatch look so oh come on ski hatch you can fold down the rear seats nice and easy like that look there we go ah there like and you've got this big huge space but i know what you're thinking look at that big ridge so it's gonna be hard to slide things to the front ah oh dear it's stuck i can't possibly do that now now if you look here you can see this ridge here you can see that this car is available with a false floor but this one doesn't have it which once again is surprising when it's the first edition model supposed to be well specified you can get it with a false floor and this is what it looks like surprised it's not standard though especially at this price that brings down to five or nine things about the id4 instead of the normal way of having four electric window switches for each window you only have two and if you want to control the rears you have to press this touch sensitive button to toggle to operate the rear windows and then press it again to toggle to operate the fronts what a rubbish idea as this is an electric car there's no engine under the bonnet so obviously volkswagen has made full use of that space and created a really nice big front boot oh dear not so much there are a few areas where i can store my car wire sticks of truth look i can just put that one under here like that that's good this guy can probably go in here somewhere can we go in there yes that's all right in there that one i can sort of lay there and maybe this one will fit somewhere down there perfect i'll take it all back it's not bad at all in the good old days volkswagen used to hide the reversing camera behind the rear vw badge when you put the car in reverse that badge would pop up and the camera would then poke out and then when you went forwards it would close down and it would always keep it clean because it was covered however they'd now move the reversing camera down here where it's really low close to the roads it gets covered in road grime it does have a little washer jet for it but it's still not as good as just keeping the camera completely hidden like before i often slag off peugeots and citroens for having such small glove boxes because they can't be bothered to relocate the fuse box from here when they move the steering wheel over to the right now you wouldn't only have that on a volkswagen they'd bother to do that but look not anymore look how small that glove box is they've clearly left the fuse box in there it's like they're penny pinching and cost saving i mean what is going on this is not very volkswagen this car may not only look a bit bloated but it is actually physically bloated it weighs in at over 2.1 tons which is really quite a lot and weight affects the car's efficiency its handling and also its comfort levels because you have to fit it with stiffer suspension to cope with extra weight it's not all negative though here's five good things about this car the stitching on the back of the seat may look like a design feature but it's actually functional look this is a little pocket perfect for your mobile phone look at that and then you can just sit back and look at someone's instagram so this is my instagram matt watson cars put a link in the ping comment follow me there please lots of behind the scenes stuff yeah good idea though though the door handles don't operate like normal door handles in there is actually a switch and you just pull on it huh the door opens so you're not having to have a jolly good tug but you might want to have a tug if for some reason your battery's flat and none of this works because you can still get in look if you put some pressure on it look you can see still operates like a door handle and there's even a little key there so you can unlock it manually if you have to this car has something called an id light and it's an led strip that runs the length of the dashboard by the windscreen and it interacts with you to alert you of certain things for instance if someone calls you on your mobile phone it'll start flashing if the emergency brake system realizes that you need to brake it'll flash at you to get you to break also when you're using things like the climate control it flashes up to just so that you've activated it and when you're on your satellite navigation it will indicate to show that you're needing to leave a junction soon this car has drum brakes at the back which according to volkswagen is a good thing you see electric cars hardly ever use their rear brakes because they do a lot of regen braking and so their back brake discs get all rusty looks terrible and eventually they might need replacing so volkswagen decides to just fit drum brakes instead and then they don't have to be serviced at all they'll last the life of the car i hope it's true and i've not just been repeating some pr spin check it out look i suffix anchor points on the front passenger seat which is handy if you want to carry a child seat here in the front as well keep your eye on the baby while you're driving now let's talk about the motor so at the moment there's only one version of id4 available it has a rear mounted 204 horsepower electric motor there will be a four wheel drive version which has another motor at the front combined it'll have 306 horsepower there'll also be a lower power rear drive version with around 148 horsepower this car comes with a usable battery pack of 77 kilowatt hours now to charge it if you use a three pin socket like this it can take you over 30 hours if you have a 7.5 kilowatt wall box at home that'll take 11 hours if you have the upgraded 11 kilowatt hour war box with phase free charging that'll take eight hours this car can actually charge at 125 kilowatts and if you can find one of those charges it can go from empty to 80 full in just 40 minutes now the range for this car with a full battery according to volkswagen at least 310 miles though i think that's quite optimistic now if you want to keep up to date with all the latest on the id4 and the different battery sizes and the different motors as vw releases them what i've done is put a link up there in the top right hand corner of the screen you click on that you can actually configure an id4 and then it'll give you the full range of choices that are currently available to buy this car with so then what's the id4 like for driving in town being an suv you're raised up so you get a decent view forwards however this pillar does create quite a blind spot and the back window is quite small as well which is a bit annoying when you're maneuvering you do have front and rear parking cameras which help out but it'd be better if overall visibility was just a bit better this car being heavy does have relatively firm suspension it's not terrible but you do feel the bumps a little bit more than you might expect in a car such as this however the faster you go the more it irons out the surfaces in the road what is good though is the steering is nice and light and of course because there's no gearbox or engine you can just drive it along on the throttle alone also when you're driving around town the brakes are pretty good sometimes in electric cars they can be a bit jerky but these aren't bad at all and i can flick the switch here to put it into more aggressive regen so when i lift off it will slow the car more steadily however it's not quite as abrupt a slowdown as you can get in something like a nissan leaf where you can pretty much drive it along on one pedal alone also as you'll probably notice i've lifted off the accelerator for quite a while the castle is coasting it will not go to complete standstill it will just keep on moving forward like an old-fashioned automatic car when really it's better to be able to actually stop the car just by lifting off wish it would do that i can't fault the turning circle though it's very good on this car so it is just 10 meters which is pretty similar to something like a volkswagen up and i'm going to try and show you just how good the turning circle is now i can pretty much do a ue in this track to check it safe look at this i mean that is nuts to be able to do that really is quite impressive and i didn't drop off the track at all then and then when you need to go faster you got really good pickup from the electric motor that's the great thing about electric motors instant power so i'm doing 50 floor it this only takes to get to 70. not bad at all and actually when you get into speed this is quite a relaxing car the seats are comfortable you do get a bit of noise from the wind and a very little bit of noise from the tyres but you're only really hearing those because there's no droning sound from an internal combustion engine so your ears just pick up on those bits more really it's quite a relaxing car to travel in and in terms of doing distance what is the range well this car is averaging 2.8 miles per kilowatt hour of battery used it's got a 77 kilowatt hour battery so that works out too quick mat maths come on work to 260 miles of real world range which is it's only about 70 really of what volkswagen says it should do not brilliant then but livable as for driving this thing on a twisty road well because it's heavy it's a sports car but because all the weight is low down it doesn't lean that much in the bends and you've got a perfect 50 50 weight distribution so it's very neutral and balanced and easy to drive and even if you do think silly like suddenly have to turn the wheel quickly or lift off the accelerator because you think you need to slow down it doesn't do anything untoward like step out a line it's quite safe secure fun absolutely not no way shape or form but it is fairly decent to drive if you want an electric car that is fun you're probably better off with something like a tesla model 3. and if you click on the pop-up button up there you can watch my full in-depth video review of that car now speaking of fun let's see what this car is like when it comes to launching into sports mode so i get maximum acceleration i'm going to floor it see what we do they tell me at my specialist stomach gear let's do this come on well you do volkswagen says just over eight seconds what's the reality there's a sixty oh not sixty seven point four nine seconds i'll take that so then what's my final verdict on the new volkswagen id4 should you avoid it should you consider it should he shortlist it or should he just go right ahead and buy it well i reckon you should shortlist the id4 it really is a good all-round family-friendly practical electric suv and therefore a genuine cop chafer hope you all enjoyed the video if you did please give it a like click on those windows there you can watch some more videos and if you click on that box there you go the car works how much money you can save on new car\n"