Volkswagen ID.5 review: Comfortable cruiser comes at a hefty price

Volkswagen's ID.5 shares much of its interior and underpinnings with its ID.4 stablemate

Volkswagen's ID.5 shares much of its interior and underpinnings with its ID.4 stablemate

VOLKSWAGEN ID.5
Rating	★★★☆☆
Price	from €62,645 - €64,065 as tested
Motor	a 77 kWh electric motor and not a particularly stellar  performer with a 160 km/h top speed
Range	Around 450km on a full charge, despite 530km claims
The Spec	decent enough, but not good enough for premium prices
Verdict	a curiosity

We may have mentioned in passing in some recent columns that aside from pestilence, plague, poverty, war and climate change, the world and the humanity which lives on our little blue planet is facing very many awful crises, not least of which is the ongoing automotive pandemic of the – whisper it – SUV Coupe.

This is a genre of car spawned by people with too much time on their hands and, until relatively recently, too much money in their pockets and all too little imagination when it comes to what to spend it on.

Previously these appalling beasts were only really for rich oafs – of either sex – who saw things such as the BMW X4 or X6 or the Mercedes GLC Coupe as being right up their alley, stylistically and from a narcissistic ‘look-at-me’ point of view.

And now, with more affordable Coupe SUVs such as the VW Taigo or the Renault Arkana on offer, any oaf – of either sex – can have one.

This terrible blemish on society shows no sign abating at all and this week’s tester is, sadly, another example of how far we consumers have allowed our lives to slip into an arcane and inexplicable lapse of common-sense and taste.

And the reason I raise these pertinent issues again is this week’s tester, the Volkswagen ID.5, which is yet another of these appalling apparitions, but is something which is an even greater curiosity in many ways than most of its ilk. 

As a coupe-esque version of the wildly successful ID.4, it might be reasonably supposed that the ID.5 would fit into the more cost-effective end of the market.

But that’s not the case and with a price range in the 61k-78k bracket, the ID.5 is not cheap, but VW tells me that demand is such they cannot get enough of them. This, despite the fact the car is going up against some of the premium contenders in the segment – such as the Kia EV6, the Volvo C40, the Model Y Tesla and the Ford Mustang Mach-E.

Indeed, in many ways it is also competing against erstwhile stablemates like the Audi Q4 Sportback E-Tron and the excellent Skoda Enyaq and the forthcoming Enyaq Coupe iV, both of which share powertrains and platforms.

And so, what of it? Well, to be honest, unless you’re a diehard coupe fan and have to have one whichever type of automobile you want to drive, it is truly had to separate this one from the ID.4 with which is shares so much.

Obviously, there are visual differences, although the two cars are identical from the front bumper to the B-Pillar. Thereafter the ID.5 gets a sloping roofline and the rear window is quite raked. There is also a somewhat subtle rear wing arrangement which hints at a sporty demeanour, but it is a hint that can be ignored, because this is not a particularly sporty beast.

The ID.5 GTX, which is also here now and selling well is the, erm, GTi of the IDs, but even that is not very racy. In any event and despite what might be perceived visually as a car with less space in the boot, the ID.5 actually has slightly more boot space than the ID.4 and, as a practical thing, it actually outdoes the ‘Coupe’ handle in this department.

Sitting in the rear, there is no issue with loftier passengers as the headroom – often the bane of all such cars – is decent enough and there is room for three adults in there too, something which is not a given in SUV coupes.

Up front, the similarities with the ID.4 – and even the ID.3 – are many and the cockpit will be very familiar to anyone who has driven either. There is a small digital instrument binnacle, attack to the side of which is the gear selector. Indeed the same layout is used in the Cupra Born we tested recently.

Pretty much everything else is run via the main centrally mounted touchscreen which utilises VW’s much-criticised ‘slider’ system which has already been updated by the company to make it user-friendly, but which is still fiddly and takes a lot of getting used to. And the voice control system is also a bit hit and miss.

The décor, however, was a little disappointing and certainly did not suggest the price point this car comes in are. By comparison, the Skoda Enyaq is much more sophisticated and way better appointed. That’s disappointing for the money being asked here.

On the road this is a really nice car to drive, as the handling and ride are pretty top drawer. But, in essence, there’s little obvious difference between it and the ID.4 and if you were looking for a sportier demeanour, there isn’t one.

But, given the quality of the driving experience, that’s no bad thing. The 77 kWh electric motor powers the rear wheels and overall handling and ride characteristics are up with the best of the electrics out there right now.

There are two options on the power front – either 174 or 204 bhp – and it was the former we tried and while it is not scintillating by any measure, the 0-100 km/h time of 10.3 seconds is not terribly quick by electric standards and the 160 km/h top speed won’t raise many eyebrows either.

But it still feels swift enough and I suppose the silence in which you make progress seems to make things feel faster than the really are. The higher-powered model gives a little more zip in the 0-100 km/h sprint at 8.3 seconds, but the top speed remains the same.

It is the range that will concern people most, however, and on that front, the VW offers a lot of peace of mind. The ID.5 is claimed to have range of 513 to 532 km and, to be fair, you will see a good deal of that whatever way you drive it.

The tester, as is often the case with these machines, would only fill to the 450 km mark on my home charger but you got most of those klicks from it no matter how you drove it. 

Unlike so many other electrics the range does not plummet like Sterling after a Liz Truss budget if you are hard on the car and, thus, range anxiety is never an issue.

Charging too is good and if you get a powerful enough system, you will get 80% in just 30 minutes. A regular home charger will fill it to capacity with ease overnight.

Unlike a lot of SUV Coupes, the ID.5 makes little pretence towards actually being sporty. It is, rather, a very comfortable cruiser that has little interest in being anything else. So, forget any GTi-esque ideation you might have and just take it for what it is.

Sure you will cruise easily at motorway speeds and in palpable comfort and still have reserves for overtaking when necessary, just don’t expect to be blistering the tarmac.

The ID.5 – nice an all as it is and despite the coupe styling – is still something of a curiosity and, to be honest if you want an family-friendly electric VW, then I’d suggest saving a few quid and settling for the ID.4. The two cars are mechanically identical, but one is cheaper.

This is not a bad car by any standards, but for the money, we can think of many that are better.