Volkswagen ID.3 58kWh Review

Performance

If you are looking for Tesla-style performance figures to impress small children and people at the bar in your local pub, the ID.3 isn’t going to be the car for you - even if you opt for the range-topping 201bhp model.  

But that’s not to say that the ID.3 is a slow car. Our test car came with the lower-powered 143bhp motor option and we found it to be perfectly perky during our time with it. Like all electric cars, it zips away from rest with a decent leap forward and can more than hold its own at motorway speeds. 

The power never takes you by surprise but it’s never lacking either. It’s very easy to drive, and if you need a bit of extra punch to overtake or pull onto a motorway from a slip road, the ID.3 takes care of it. 

Al ID.3 models have the motor at the back and are rear-wheel drive. This set up gives it a lovely balance and in damp conditions, you experience none of the wheelspin that can affect front-wheel drive electric cars such as the Nissan LEAF. 

Driving

Pretty much all of the ID.3 is unconventional, but Volkswagen has been very careful to make sure the way it drives is very familiar. It doesn’t want to scare people off when they go for a test drive, so the ID.3 just feels like a normal car to drive, except much quieter. 

If you want to play around on a nice road, the ID.3 will let you enjoy yourself and it feels secure, helped by the low centre of gravity – most of the heavy parts of the car are low down and under the floor. The weight is also split 50:50 between the front and back of the car. This helps it feel balanced too – imagine swinging a hammer at one end then the other and you’ll feel why equal weighting is important.

Perhaps the nicest surprise of the ID.3 is the steering though. It has a really tight turning circle, making it incredibly easy to park and turn in tight streets. 

While the driving experience will be unthreatening to those used to petrol cars, experienced EV owners will have to get used to the braking system in the ID3. It will only slow down very gently even when you switch to B mode on the gear selector lever, so the ID.3 is miles away from the one-pedal feeling that is common with electric cars such as the Nissan Leaf and BMW i3.

To make up for this potential lost energy capture, the ID.3's electronics scan the road far ahead using cameras, radar and even the sat nav information to ensure the motor is being used in the most efficient way. It will automatically start to decelerate before cross roads, cut the power on downhill gradients, observe speed limits and keep its distance from the car in front. Take your foot off the accelerator pedal you will roll for miles in idle mode, like cutting the engine on a petrol car as you're rolling down a hill.