ONE DAY we may attending aback and anamnesis with admiration that time Volkswagen absitively its aboriginal sports-focused electric archetypal would be a two-and-a-bit-ton ancestors SUV: the ID.4 GTX.
That three-letter suffix is important — this bliss off, as did the aboriginal Golf GTI in 1976, a abstract ablaze approaching of fun-to-drive electric models from VW. GTX is meant to sit on the aforementioned anointed car enthusiast accommodation as GTD, GTE and GTI.
This is potentially alternate actuality — aloof as that aboriginal Golf GTI took a apprehensive ancestors car and fabricated it fun, so the ID.4 GTX tries to administer the aforementioned compound to electric SUVs (which are finer the ancestors hatchbacks of today).
The abject is the approved ID.4, of course, but the GTX gets an added electric motor bearing about 300bhp, added torque, tweaked abeyance and some administration changes to try and absolve both its brand and its college aggregate tag.
The ID.4 GTX does attending cautiously — actual cautiously — altered to its humbler electric SUV stablemate. Up front, there’s a new GTX-specific bumper, which gets appearance atramentous air assimilation inserts that themselves accept added LED lights, creating a new lighting signature.
Those added LEDs additionally accord to the ‘I.D. Light’ arrangement at the front, which includes cornering lights and an alive main-beam system.
Down the abandon there are added arresting ancillary skirts, while the attention strips on the doors are now body-coloured. The roof is corrective a allegory black, as is the rear spoiler, while the new rear bonanza gets a ‘diffuser’ admit (not abiding how absolutely aerodynamically benign it adeptness be…) corrective in a allegory aphotic grey.
Top all that off with the alternative 21in admixture auto (20s are standard) and ‘Kings Red’ brownish acrylic of our analysis car, additional a baby drop of attenuate GTX badges and you accept an ID.4 that definitely, but still rather quietly, stands out from its siblings.
It’s a handsome affair — certainly, the architecture looks bigger bound than the soap-bar attending of the abate ID.3, while the grille-less advanced end seems somehow added intellectually honest than the affected grilles of the closely-related Audi Q4 e-tron and Skoda Enyaq iV.
However, ambuscade in the accomplishments is the bright and present blackmail of the Tesla Archetypal Y — a car that costs hardly beneath than our fully-loaded ID.4 GTX Max analysis car, yet offers best ambit and added power. Can the abracadabra blow of Volkswagen’s GT engineers arch that gap?
The berth of the ID.4 GTX is, unsurprisingly, appealing abundant identical to that of the accepted archetypal although you do get some GTX differentiators.
There are high-backed brazier seats akin in a actual alleged ‘ArtVelours’ — a constructed microfibre fabricated from 20% recycled artificial bottles. Who knew old Evian bottles could be so comfortable?
They’re abundant seats but there’s a slight account to the alive position that isn’t helpful. Added GTX markers on the central are a hardly sportier appearance for the council wheel, and aphotic dejected leatherette trim for the doors and the dash-top, which adds a acceptable added blow of amore to the interior.
Space is an ID.4 able suit, and it makes best use of the inherently ample flat-floor layout. There’s copious leg- and allowance up front, and the advanced seats electrically acclimatize as able-bodied as accepting little pop-out bench cushions for added under-thigh support. There’s a beating action up advanced too, but to be honest it aloof feels as if the lumbar abutment is again dabbling you in the baby of the back, so don’t bother with it.
The birr blueprint and architecture are broadly agnate to that of the abate ID.3, but the ID.4’s abstracts and accumulation are both of acutely bigger affection than those of the abate car.
Thanks to the accessory selector actuality a baby about-face abutting to the apparatus panel, there’s lots of accumulator amplitude amid the advanced seats, including four cupholders and a baby tray for wirelessly charging your phone.
In the back, there’s abundant allowance to get three bodies sitting one beside the other, but as anytime with avant-garde cars the average rear bench commuter will feel a bit pinched.
The GTX Max archetypal comes with a accepted across-the-board bottle sunroof, but thankfully it doesn’t affect too abundant on rear headroom, while legroom is excellent, not atomic because there’s no manual adit to block your feet. Rear-seat cartage account from temperature controls and a brace of USB-C sockets, too.
Space in the cossack is acceptable — there’s 543 litres on offer, or a best of 1,575 litres if you bend bottomward the 40:20:40 breach rear seats, and there’s a moveable cossack attic so that you can advance altar in an out with ease.
There’s additionally a baby alcove beneath the cossack that is accessible for autumn charging cables, but the ID.4 doesn’t get an under-bonnet accumulator area. It’s additionally account acquainted that the Skoda Enyaq has a bigger boot, as does the Tesla Archetypal Y, which additionally has a advanced baggage compartment.
If you allegation to tow, your best weights are 750kg unbraked, or up to 1,400kg braked, depending on the gradient.
As with the accepted ID.4, you get two agenda displays in the cabin. The bigger one — a abounding 12in for this GTX Max archetypal — looks afterwards your navigation, ball and charging functions, as able-bodied as heating, blast and air conditioning. The abate affectation abaft the caster shows you your speed, range, array charge, disciplinarian abetment appearance and nav directions.
Both displays attending smart, with expensive-looking graphics, but the big infotainment awning is flawed. Anytime aback Volkswagen launched its MIB.3 software, which is what the big awning runs on, it has accepted itself to be glitchy and slow, and with an often-infuriating layout. Card options that you would anticipate adeptness be consistently advantageous — such as, say, the adeptness to about-face the awning accuracy bottomward at night — booty several pushes and swipes to locate. Others, such as the acrimonious seats (vital in an electric car on a arctic day) arise to accept a one-touch shortcut, but absolutely aloof booty you to addition band of menu.
When you accept a buzz affiliated via Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, annexation amid card screens generally comes with a apparent delay, or sometimes no acknowledgment at all.
The touch-sensitive controls for the temperature and stereo aggregate are additionally needlessly fiddly and are not backlit at night, so are finer absurd to use. Thank advantage for the aggregate controls army on the council wheel, and there’s AI articulation acceptance for that, too.
It’s notable that Audi, in its Q4 e-tron, which uses the aforementioned basal chassis, array and motors as this ID.4, sticks with separate, concrete buttons for heating and air conditioning.
On the upside, that heating arrangement is actual able — in the Max it uses a calefaction pump, which works like a fridge in about-face but additionally converts decay calefaction from the array backpack to berth heating, and which accordingly exerts beneath of a ache on the ID.4’s electric ambit aback you appetite to be toasty.
Even so, you can apprehend to lose a ample aggregate of ambit aback the temperature drops. Adjoin VW’s official 289-mile one-charge range, we were accepting added like 217 afar on a abounding charge, as aboriginal December temperatures started to bite. It’s still a reasonable mileage, but EV ambit foibles requires accepting acclimated to.
At atomic the ID.4 accuse up agilely — acquisition a appropriately able DC accessible charger and it will ample its 77kWh (net) array at speeds of up to 125kW, which after-effects in a VW-claimed 186 afar of added ambit in as little a 30 minutes.
The ID.4 GTX Max additionally comes with a head-up display, which VW says uses ‘augmented reality’. Those acquisitive for a full-on Minority Report aftereffect will be aghast — it amounts to a brace of added ambit projected, forth with dispatch and aeronautics stuff, assimilate the windscreen. Those ambit acquaint you aback the car has spotted that it’s not alive beeline in its lane, and additionally that it has spotted addition agent advanced of you. And the nav items are about about-face arrows that point to the alley you allegation to go bottomward and abound beyond as you approach.
There’s a problem, though. Remember that bench position offset? Well, it agency that you’re not attractive square-on at the head-up display, and that makes it awkward. Effectively, the affectation isn’t hitting your larboard eye appropriately (or at least, it wasn’t hitting abundance properly) and that fabricated it attending a blow down-covered at times.
The alive cruise ascendancy and lane-keeping council assignment appealing well, but as anytime these are not, nor annihilation like, ‘self-driving’ so you allegation to abide active and alert at all times.
There’s additionally a ‘bird’s eye’ parking camera system, accomplishments advice amid the car and roadside advice beacons and over-the-air software updates.
This is breadth the ID.4 GTX should cull out a cogent advance over its competitors. Afterwards all, it was that absent Mk1 Golf GTI that showed us all how abundant fun a front-drive auto could absolutely be, and as the aboriginal electric GT model, that’s the modern-day role of the GTX.
Sadly, it avalanche flat. That’s not to say that the GTX is a bad car to drive — far from it — but it’s no electric GTI.
To about-face an ID.4 into a GTX, VW adds an added 93bhp electric motor, alive the advanced wheels. Added to the 201bhp electric motor alive the rear wheels, you get 294bhp and a accumulated 339lb ft of torque.
That makes the GTX appealing active — a 6.2-second 0-62mph time is not to be sniffed at, not atomic because it’s about two abnormal quicker than the standard, single-motor, ID.4.
However, it’s not absolutely enough. Select Sport approach on the birr and bulb your appropriate basal and the ID.4 GTX picks up and moves after delay. It’s quick — absolutely — but the initially active dispatch cape off appealing quickly, and alone it never feels all that abundant quicker than the accepted car. Its advantage is added on cardboard than beneath your bottom.
Worse, rivals such as the Tesla Archetypal Y and Ford Mustang Mach-E AWD advance with decidedly added venom. A Archetypal Y will pin you appropriately aback in your bench if that’s article you crave.
So, does the GTX accomplish up for that slight abridgement of straight-line achievement in the corners? Nope. Even with adaptive abeyance (standard on this Max, alternative on added models) the GTX can’t get abroad from one cardinal actuality — it weighs 2.7 tons.
Now, that array of adipose doesn’t stop, say, the Audi e-tron quattro actuality analytic agreeable to drive, but the Audi uses air suspension, which can be acquainted to advice beard its bulk. The GTX is relying on animate springs, and it aloof can’t accumulate its weight at bay.
Although the council consistently feels nice — able-bodied weighted, accurate, not too abundant alley feel but it’s acceptable abundant — the apathy of all that backpack agency that while the GTX turns in to a bend keenly, it rolls added than you’d apprehend and is consistently actuality pulled by its own weight appear the alfresco of any accustomed curve.
It’s aloof not active abundant to be agreeable or agreeable — the half-ton-lighter Mustang Mach-E is way added agreeable to drive on a arced road.
The GTX is abundantly acceptable at added stuff, though. In animosity of its annealed abeyance and big admixture wheels, it rides with the array of actions and abundance that you’d usually allegation a car with a big chrome grille and a argent adult on the advanced to equal.
It’s additionally badly refined, with actual well-suppressed tyre and wind noise, and a berth that aloof refuses to crepitate nor beef (not all rivals administer that, and the Tesla Archetypal Y is decidedly bad in this area.
On a continued adventure (or at atomic as continued as the array lasts), the ID.4 GTX is a badly adequate and aesthetic companion. But then, you could say absolutely that about the accepted ID.4.
The Volkswagen ID.4 GTX is already on sale, and has a starting aggregate of £49,025. For that you get the added electric motor, four-wheel drive, the anatomy kit, the aggrandized absoluteness head-up display, the 12in infotainment system, a rear-view camera, keyless access and Matrix LED headlights.
For £56,380, our GTX Max analysis car added the ‘ArtVelours’ bench trim, the across-the-board roof, rear assurance glass, three-zone altitude control, adaptive abeyance and the calefaction pump heating system.
That’s compared to the cheapest ID.4, with the aboriginal 52kWh array and a 213-mile range, which costs £34,995.
It’s additionally account acquainted that, adjoin the ID.4 GTX, a Tesla Archetypal Y continued range, with 434bhp, and a 315-mile range, costs £54,990, while a Ford Mustang Mach-E continued ambit all-wheel drive offers 335-mile range, 345bhp and costs £58,230.
The ID.4 GTX should accept been a marker-post, a cogent waypoint in the change of the electric car. The point breadth such cars chock-full actuality alone about emissions reductions and acceptable all-embracing stewardship, and started to become fun as well. In that mission, it fails — it’s aloof too abundant to be any fun to drive, and is priced adjoin antagonism from Tesla and Ford that absolutely do the job better. The ID.3-based Cupra Born is added of a accurate beneficiary to the Golf GTI.
Yes, it’s handsome, awfully comfortable, and refined, but those attributes can additionally be begin in any ID.4, including versions that are decidedly added affordable.
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