FIVE STAR? (some text hidden) SECTIONED_new_volkswagenid5_2022

By Jonathan Crouch

Introductionword count: 72

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.

Modelsword count: 3

5dr Coupe-SUV (77kWh)

Historyword count: 180

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 Getword count: 676

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.

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