After a week with the VW ID.4, I’m still confident I made the right decision. Switching from a Tesla Model 3 was a big move, but the reasons were clear: I wanted more cargo space, a nicer interior, and to avoid the plummeting resale value of my Tesla. On top of that, I was tired of associating my car with Elon Musk. Every time I saw the news, I thought about selling my car. So, I finally did. Sanity restored. I think early on, the biggest takeaway for me is that I like having a car that happens to be electric, which is a bit of shift from the approach Tesla takes. There are a ton of features but everything tries to be too clever.
The Pros
Overall, I’m very happy with the way that the car feels in the interior. It’s not a luxury car by any stretch, but it just feels “nice”. It’s the little things that make a big difference. The normal door handles are a refreshing change—imagine, a door handle that works like a door handle! Revolutionary. The ride is whisper-quiet, and the added trunk space means I can actually fit things in my car without playing Tetris. Closing doors doesn’t feel cheap, things don’t squeak when you move, I haven’t heard rattles. I love the fully retractable sun shade, which is a godsend in the hot summer months in Georgia. The CarPlay integration is excellent, offering an infotainment system that doesn’t look like a webpage that the CSS failed to load. Having choice in mapping, music and more is so, so wonderful.
The screen layout in the VW ID.4 is actually practical, unlike Tesla’s, which devoted a third of its real estate to desperately convincing me I needed Full Self-Driving. I’ve got a smaller screen directly in front of me with range, speed, mapping and other relevant info so you don’t need to glance toward the middle of the car to get that info. As far as the ride goes, the ID.4 drives like an actual car instead of a rolling iPad, and switching between single-pedal and regular driving is a breeze—great for me, and a win for my wife, who would rather not be thrown into the windshield every time she takes her foot off the accelerator. Acceleration is fine, but not as good as the M3. Despite the spacious interior, parking isn’t bad, either. It takes a little getting used to between being higher up and such, but so far no real issues there.
Oh, and physical buttons! Well, sort of. More on that later.
The Cons
I expected some trade-offs with an early-gen EV, but some of these quirks are just plain unnecessary. Charging is noticeably slower, taking about 12 hours to go from 20-80% on a Level 2 charger, compared to about seven hours with my Tesla. I haven’t fine-tuned the settings yet, so maybe there’s hope. The range is also lower—around 220 miles per charge versus the Model 3’s 320—but let’s be honest, how often am I really driving across the country? Most of my driving is either under 5 miles or day trips with the family. Plotting a ~90 mile radius from our house (to account for round trip and arriving home with a little extra juice) makes any day trip in the north part of the state easy. I used a supercharger exactly 9 times in the 3 years I owned a Tesla, so this isn’t really an issue but the range is significantly less than my previous car. Time will tell if this gives me more range anxiety but I don’t anticipate it.
CarPlay is great, but the downside is that I don’t get that super-integrated charging network experience when using Apple or Google Maps. Not a huge deal given the fact that I only used it about a dozen times in 3 years, but it was definitely a strength of my previous car. Also, welcome back, key fob! It’s been a while. Single-pedal driving exists, but it’s not as smooth as Tesla’s. The app? It’s fine. It will graciously let me know if I left the car unlocked, but will it won’t let me do anything about it from the app. Better than nothing, but only barely.
And let’s talk about the buttons. VW had the right idea: let’s use physical buttons for a lot of the typical functions like climate control, play/pause, volume, TACC, etc. But then they decided to make them capacitive instead of, you know, actual buttons. There’s also no walk-away auto lock yet, though apparently, it’s coming in a software update.
A Note About Adapters, Tesla Wall Chargers, and Permissions
One unexpected snag was the charging compatibility. The ID.4 uses a CCS charging port, but I own a Tesla Wall Charger. Instead of replacing it (as almost any new EV will use the NACS charging standard), I opted for a TeslaTap – 50 AMP Tesla to J-1772 Adapter. When I first plugged it in, the car gave me the silent treatment—just a flashing white light, followed by a solid red one, which is car-speak for “figure it out yourself.”
After some frustrating troubleshooting, I realized my Tesla Wall Charger had a security setting restricting charging to specific Teslas. Once I reset the charger and changed the Access Control setting to “Any Electric Vehicle,” the ID.4 finally decided to cooperate. Problem solved, but not before a minor freak out of what the root cause might be.
Final Thoughts
Despite a few minor drawbacks (and a couple of head-scratchers), I’m really happy with the switch. I knew I’d be trading off some EV advancements, but given my actual driving habits, it’s not an issue. At the end of the day, I’ve got a car that feels like an actual car, not a tech experiment, and I’m not constantly reminded of a certain billionaire every time I get behind the wheel. That alone makes it worth it. I feel like as I learn more about how to get the most out the VW I’ll be even happier I made the move.