Volkswagen ID.7 (2023 - ) Electric review

All electric cars score well on fuel costs compared with their petrol rivals on the basis domestic electricity drawn from a home charging point is so much cheaper than petrol. Play it properly and an off-peak charge overnight could cost you under a fiver for 200 miles, compared with about £40 at the pumps to cover a similar distance. However, electric-car insurance premiums rose on average 79 per cent year on year in 2023 have dented those running costs, and we’ve also seen some alarming prices at public chargers, be they rapid ones at motorway services or slower ‘destination’ points at places like hotels. You can reduce costs by joining subscription services rolling charging suppliers into a single account and card but anything over 75p per kWh will set you back a similar amount to filling with petrol, thus putting the pressure back on wallets. In purchase price terms the ID.7 is pitched relatively keenly for the large electric car it is, especially if you value the sharp handling and ride quality people are typically happy worth paying a premium for in a luxury model. Customers who order before January 2024 also get a free Ohme home charger, or a £750 charging credit with WeCharge – get in quick!

Volkswagen doesn’t rank well of late in reliability tables. What Car?’s reliability survey has it in 22nd place out of the 32 brands listed, and the Driver Power Survey places the marque 18th out of 29. The Volkswagen ID family of electric cars is really still too new to gather reliable data on, but hopes are not particularly high across the portfolio even if the shared foundations of the range are used by multiple models across brands as diverse as Skoda, Cupra and Audi.

Unsurprisingly for a top-of-the-range model the ID.7 comes packed with safety technology. There is an active cruise control system called Travel Assist which takes over the steering, acceleration and braking as long as the car senses your hands on the steering wheel at all times. You can also use the remote control function on the car’s app to move it into a tight parking space with you outside the car. We’ve always wondered where that leaves the driver of the car you squeezed in next to, but never mind. There’s the usual emergency automatic braking with swerve assist to steer you out of danger, and a driver monitor system to alert you when you’re tired. We don’t rate any of these functions on any car out there, typically finding them obtrusive and regularly overly sensitive in real world driving. The only one we always value is the blind-spot warning system, also present on the ID.7.

Comfort is the ID.7’s sweet spot. This is a wonderfully plush, stretch-out-and-sigh interior, with lots of leg- and headroom front and rear, and a decent boot. The ride is smooth as you like, with no engine noise (obviously) but also an impressive amount of sound deadening to block out tyre and wind noise, as well as most vibrations from the road. You get “ergo Active” seats which you can heat or cool, with massage functions, and a new heating system in the car begins as you approach with the key in hand for a head start on warming or cooling the cabin according to the season and ambient temperatures. It’s a very pleasant place to sit and watch the world go by on long journeys and, if you closed your eyes to unsee the dull interior and some nasty black plastic, you could easily imagine you were sitting in a car worth £50,000 more.

Happily, the near useless slider for the volume and temperature controls at the base of the infotainment system is now backlit so you can find it at night. Volkswagen also seems to have recalibrated the sensors on the sliders, so both are easier to use. The infotainment system itself is displayed on a huge central screen which uses the same system of bringing the functions to the foreground as your finger approaches used in other Volkswagen Group cars. Bluntly, we’re not massive fans. It’s an average system, without the clarity of maps provided by Google and Apple so most drivers will want to plug their smartphone in for navigation. Similarly, the air-con controls are sub-par, because you have to adapt the air flow via the touch-screen rather than simply moving manual vents. Note to Volkswagen and others - not everything is better in a digital version.

There are two versions of the ID.7 on offer: one with a 77kWh battery and a more expensive version with an 86kWh battery, which joins the line-up in mid 2024. Read more on electric car batteries and what means here! The range for both is good, the former with an official max distance of 382 miles on one charge while the latter stretches that to 435 miles. While we don’t expect drivers to achieve either in normal conditions to even get near 400 miles is a great feat of engineering with existing battery tech. The ID.7 has impressive handling, steering and suspension, which all combine together to create a surprisingly satisfying driving experience on twisty country roads as well as motorways. Not many cars offer both comfort and driving engagement to that degree.