By Jonathan Crouch
Introduction
With the ID.5 mid-sized Coupe-SUV launched in late-2021, Volkswagen offered its most aspirational EV yet. It certainly has a dash more pavement presence than the ID.4 SUV it's entirely based upon: and in top GTX hot hatch form, it better showcases the brand's more potent AWD dual motor powertrain. A Volkswagen EV small boys might want to pin on their bedroom walls? Maybe not quite, but it's an interesting used market choice.
History
The EV revolution is now in full swing, which means customers want a wider choice. And style as well as functionality from their electric vehicles. Back in 2021, Volkswagen hoped they would want something like this, the ID.5, which at launch was the third member of the brand's growing family of full-battery-powered models.
By then, we'd already seen two other VW Group brands announce coupe versions of their mid-sized EVs. So the Skoda Enyaq iV spawned the Enyaq iV Coupe and the Audi Q4 e-tron sired the Audi Q4 Sportback e-tron. In the same way, the ID.5 is a Volkswagen ID.4 with a more rakish, swept-back roof - and a premium looking price point, which from new started at around £50,000; though partly, that's because this car was only offered with the larger 77kWh battery from the ID.4.
So, an aspirational Volkswagen EV. Interested yet? And does an early ID.5 make sense as a used buy? Let's see. Here, we'll focus on the early 2022-2023 versions of this model, the cars produced before the mid-term facelift that arrived in late-2024.
What You Get
Exterior design is obviously important to you if you're after an ID.5. Otherwise, you'd have paid less for an ID.4 instead. And the SUV-Coupe silhouette we first saw on the brand's ID.CROZZ concept car certainly delivers more pavement presence than you get with this car's showroom stablemate, embellished by roof rails and big wheels. Whether you think it's as 'powerful, confident and elegant' as Volkswagen thinks it is will be a subjective call. All the key drive stuff sits over the rear axle - principally the single-speed gearbox and the permanent-magnet synchronous electric motor that's been mated to it, both very efficiently packaged; Volkswagen says that both elements, together with the associated control electronics, collectively weigh just 90kgs and could fit into a typical gym bag. All of this powered by a high voltage battery that's been efficiently arranged in the underbody to save space. Which leaves nothing to sit at the front end but a few auxiliary units like the air conditioning compressor and of course the steering rack.
At the wheel, there's no need for a gear lever, an ignition slot or a handbrake - and that's just the beginning of the things you'll need to adjust to, in a cabin designed around what Volkswagen calls an 'Open Space' concept. You sit quite high, on top of all those batteries, and the interior design has an airy but minimalist and rather clinical feel which Volkswagen tried unsuccessfully to lift by imprinting 'Play' and 'Pause' symbols on the two footwell pedals. Predictably, it's all the same as you get in an ID.4, which means there's not much in the way of switchgear and of course, you do without conventional instruments, all of this replaced by a couple of TFT displays, a little 5.3-inch one behind the steering wheel and a main 'Discover Max' tablet of 12-inches in size in the centre of the dash. Build quality is generally good but cheaper plastics betray the cost cutting necessary to undergird all that sophisticated EV technology. The gear selector is housed in a right hand protrusion from the instrument binnacle, though here, there's the additional novelty in the fact that the whole binnacle moves up and down as you adjust the wheel. Other adjustments are done using either touch-sensitive buttons (like the fiddly sliders for the climate system); or with voice control prefaced by the command “Hello I.D”.
Rear cabin space was one of the things we really liked about the ID.4, but with 25mm less roof height, you might expect that to be compromised here. To some extent that's true. Headroom's compromised not only by the more swept-back silhouette but also by the fact that Volkswagen standardised a vast panoramic glass roof for ID.5 customers and the result is that anyone travelling in the rear that's over six foot tall will find their hair brushing the ceiling. Still, you'd expect to have to make a slight compromise in that regard to get this more stylish body shape.
In terms of space of your legs and knees, as in the ID.4, it's all very impressive - as so often these days in a mid-sized EV uncompromised by the packaging needs of a combustion powertrain. Despite having the driveway foot print of a Volkswagen Tiguan, the brand claims interior space more akin to the larger Tiguan Allspace - and that's pretty much how it feels. It's also a wider cabin than you'd expect a car of this size to be able to provide and with no central transmission tunnel to obstruct things, three adults could actually fit reasonably easily into the back of this car.
Let's finish with the boot. Once the wide hatch rises, the space provided, at 549-litres, is surprisingly 6-litres larger than that of an ID.4. The rear bench doesn't split flexibly 40:20:40 like it does in a rival BMW iX3, but Volkswagen does at least provide a ski hatch so that longer items to be poked through into the cabin. Flattening the 60:40-split rear bench frees up 1,561-litres of capacity loaded to roof height.
What to Look For
We've heard of various problems. An electrical system / drive system malfunction has afflicted a number of cars. One owner experienced all the safety systems shutting down due to a loose wire in the wiring harness. In another case, the illumination light on the driver's door handle went out. Apparently the steering wheel sometimes peels off like sunburnt skin after a time too, requiring the whole wheel to be replaced. In a number of cases, repeated glitches were only solved when the dealership replaced the communication modules between the dash unit and the head unit. One owner reported that the brakes randomly jam on for no apparent reason very slow traffic. And reported warning lights on the dash at least once a week saying the Park assist system is malfunctioning and the brake booster is limited. ECU problems seem to be relatively common, due to cracked system or daughter boards or cold solder joints.
Check the infotainment screen thoroughly. Some owners reported Android Auto only works half of the time, with the other half needing to be rebooted several times. Apparently the volume gets often stuck. In one case the infotainment screen kept rebooting every few minutes due to a bad USB hub. One owner reported that the taillights remained on for hours after the vehicle was powered down. And got frequent electrical system yellow warning errors several times. In another case, an instrument cluster showed a cascade of errors and needed a car reboot. Check the scheduled charging - it sometimes doesn't work. And occasionally the electronic door openers fail to trigger. Driver detection is sometimes unreliable with owners getting warned to put their hands on the steering wheel when they are already on the wheel.
Otherwise, it's just the usual things, check for scratched alloys and interior child damage - and insist on a fully stamped up service history.
Replacement Parts
[based on a 2022 ID.5 77kWh Pro Performance 204PS ex VAT] An pollen filter will be priced in the £6-£21 bracket. The front brake discs we came across sat in the £75 bracket, with pricier-branded discs costing up to £117. Front brake pads are in the £35 to £122 bracket for a set. A rear shock absorber is in the £24-£78 bracket; front shock absorbers are in the £138 bracket. Wiper blades are in the £6-£11 bracket and a wiper motor will cost in the £37 to £132 bracket.
On the Road
There's a bit to adapt to if this is your first experience of EV motoring. No gearstick, no handbrake, no ignition key and just the sound of silence as the fixed ratio transmission blends an almost endless wave of torque into meaningful and surprisingly rapid forward progress. The forward thrust away from rest isn't quite as abrupt as it is in some smaller EVs: a lot of that's to do with this car's prodigious two-tonne kerb weight, a factor which affects most areas of this car's drive demeanour, sometimes helpfully, sometimes not. That of course is a legacy of the substantial battery packs it must carry about. The 77kWh battery alone (the only one offered to ID.5 customers) weighs a portly 493kgs. Despite all that, the performance on offer is reasonably brisk - or at least it is with the 204PS 'Pro Performance' model, which makes 62mph in 8.4s, two seconds quicker than the 177PS 'Pro' model (which consequently feels a bit lethargic by EV standards). Either way, Volkswagen claimed a driving range of up to 316 miles.
Like Volkswagen's original post-war Beetle, mainstream versions of this car are rear-driven and when you drive an ID.5 in town, you quickly realise the real advantages of placing the powertrain - the electric motor and its associated single-speed auto gearbox - on the back axle, thereby freeing up the front wheels for steering duties; the result is a London taxi-like 10.2-metre turning circle. Beyond the city limits, that drive format allows for a near-50:50 almost perfect weight distribution which, together with the low centre of gravity provided by the central battery pack placement, helps disguise the portly weight this SUV must carry around. Traction through the turns is excellent and body roll is checked by firm damping cleverly engineered for suppleness over poor surfaces. All of which ought to provide the recipe for a decently sporting EV - and in some ways it does, though the steering, while accurate, offers disappointingly little real feedback.
If you do prioritise performance in your choice of ID.5, Volkswagen wanted you to consider the top flagship GTX variant, which sees the 77kWh battery mated to electric motors on both axles, which delivers 4WD capability and more potent 299PS total output. That version gets an extra 'Traction' mode to add to the other drive settings common across the model line-up; there's 'Comfort', 'Sport' and 'Individual'. Plus you get an 'Eco' setting that, to maximise range, you'll need to frequently use in combination with the available 'B' regenerative braking function, which slows the car significantly when you come off the accelerator.
Whatever ID.5 model you select, your charging regime should be quite straightforward. There's a 'We Charge' app that helps you find and use over 150,000 public charge points. An AC1-phase 7.4kW garage wallbox would replenish the battery of mainstream models from zero in about twelve and a quarter hours. What about if you find a public rapid charger along your route? Well of you're looking at later 2022 and 2023 versions of this car, you'll get the better version of this car's 77kWh battery which upped maximum charging capacity to 135kW. Which means that at a DC3 100kW charge point, a mainstream ID.5 model can be replenished from 5 to 80% in 29 minutes.
Overall
You have to wonder exactly how many people will be in the market for a car like this, right here, right now. And how many of the people that are will decide that they want this car, rather than its identically-engineered and similar-looking VW Group cousins, the Skoda Enyaq Coupe and the Audi Q4 Sportback e-tron. Still, the ID.5 is good to look at, practical, full of tech and offers very competitive driving range figures. The problem is though that most of its rivals could be described in a similar way and a number of those cars are better to drive than this one. That might not matter so much if the cabin trimming felt a bit more up-market and if Volkswagen hadn't asked such a premium to go from ID.4 to ID.5 ownership.
At least variant choice is easy: the base 'Pro' motor is slightly under-powered, while the top Dual Motor GTX version is slightly over-priced. That leaves the mid-level 'Pro Performance' derivative as the sweet spot in a range that'll appeal broadly on aesthetics. If you like the idea of one of these on your driveway and don't mind the aspirational asking prices, then you'll probably like almost everything else about it. But you'll be a rare kind of customer. Maybe that's part of the appeal.
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