ALICANTE, Spain — Volkswagen is not out of strategies when it comes to electrifying its lineup. Globally, its loved ones of ID-branded EVs contains the Golfing-sized ID.3 hatchback, the ID.4 crossover, and the lengthy-awaited ID. Excitement. A person of the vacant slots is formed like a sedan, and the corporation will fill it when it turns the ID.Aero notion unveiled in 2022 into a flagship sedan identified as ID.7. The product won’t make its debut right until afterwards in 2023, but I had the opportunity to acquire a prototype for a quick spin.
The word “flagship” is nebulous it usually means different issues to various corporations. You are on the wrong track if you’re wondering about a stick to-up to the Phaeton, the underrated, Bentley-associated luxo-barge created to acquire on the S-Course and launched for 2004. The ID.7 will be positioned closer to the Arteon, which means it will be large and pricey for a Volkswagen instead of large and pricey, time period. It’s not being created to contend in the same arena as, say, the Mercedes-Benz EQS or the BMW i7.
I simply cannot convey to you significantly about the ID.7’s exterior design for the reason that I’m sworn to secrecy right up until the sedan’s formal unveiling on April 17. What I can say is that, like the thought, the generation product was designed to be as aerodynamic as feasible. Volkswagen pegs the sedan’s drag coefficient at .23, which lands in the exact same bracket as electric powered sedans like the BMW i4 (.24) and the Porsche Taycan (.22). It stretches 195.3 inches lengthy, 73.3 inches wide, and 60.6 inches tall, which is even bigger than the American-sector Passat Volkswagen axed in 2022 that was a big car or truck by itself, measuring 191.9 inches long, 72.2 inches large, and 58.5 inches tall. The ID.7 rides on a 116.8-inch wheelbase, whilst the Passat’s wheelbase checked in at 110.4 inches.
The somewhat lengthy wheelbase hints at what is beneath the sheetmetal. Volkswagen developed the ID.7 on the modular MEB platform that underpins its existing ID models. It is an architecture developed exclusively for EVs, so the corporation is ready to experiment with unique packaging options and proportions. This partly explains why the ID.7 has a wheelbase that is so a great deal more time than the Passat’s, and why it is 2 inches taller. An electric powered motor is much more compact than a turbo-four, but the battery hogs house in the underbody.
Making use of the MEB system helps make the ID.7 the very first rear-wheel-drive Volkswagen sedan in quite a few many years, but Volkswagen did not basically reskin the ID.4 into a fastback. The drivetrain’s main is an up-to-date electrical motor that added benefits from a variety of updates, like h2o- and oil-primarily based cooling methods. Sure, this is an EV that you can carry out an oil improve on … though Volkswagen tells me the oil (which is nearer to transmission oil than to motor oil) and the filter shouldn’t need to have to be transformed because they’re intended to previous the life of the auto. Never open up up an EV-only Jiffy Lube franchise just nonetheless.
The motor’s output checks in at 282 horsepower and 402 pound-feet of torque, so it is the most strong device in Volkswagen’s arsenal, and it spins the rear wheels via a solitary-pace computerized transmission. Will this motor discover its way to other ID-badged EVs? Will a dual-motor all-wheel-travel variant of the ID.7 sign up for the assortment quicker or later on? My crystal ball solutions “yes” to both queries, but this is pure speculation.
Globally, the ID.7 will start with two accessible lithium-ion battery packs: the foundation Professional trim will ship with a 77-kilowatt-hour device when the Professional S will acquire an 86-kilowatt-hour unit. As is frequently the circumstance, driving vary relies upon on who you question and how you drive. In Europe, Volkswagen expects that the smaller pack will produce up to 382 miles of selection whilst the even larger pack should really power the ID.7 for up to 435 miles. However, these figures are estimates obtained working with Europe’s WLTP testing cycle, which leans in the direction of the optimistic aspect of the scale. The EPA-believed quantities really should be lessen for equally battery packs.
The ID.7’s flagship aspirations — and the rewards of stretching the wheelbase — are crystal clear in the driver’s seat. There’s much more interior place than the fastback-like silhouette implies, and individuals sitting down in the two rows reward from it. I’m 5-foot-11 so I’m pretty straightforward to sit at the rear of, even in a European-market hatchback. Nonetheless, in the ID.7 I was in a position to sit powering a colleague who stands 6-foot-5 with plenty of home to spare which is relatively remarkable. There is lots of headroom in both equally rows, and Volkswagen prices roughly 18.7 cubic ft of trunk space, with a lot more obtainable if you fold down the rear seats. That’s also much better than the aged Passat.
When you’ve designed by yourself comfortable, glance around and the ID.7 strikes you as a blend of previous and new. It feels like the existing members of the ID household in several means, the pedals are labeled “pause” and “play” and rear window switches even now have not made their way to the driver’s doorway panel, but lots of of the capabilities that want advancements have been improved. The quantity knob … even now has not landed. But, the contact-delicate slider positioned under the touchscreen is now backlit, so it is much easier to use at evening.
Speaking of the touchscreen, the ID.7 gets a 15-inch unit (up from 12 inches in the ID.4) that displays a new variation of Volkswagen’s infotainment program. Some of the variations produced to the software program reflect a actuality that is turning into more and more distinct across the entire automotive spectrum: Utilizing what’s fairly a lot a big smartphone to regulate your motor vehicle is rather dangerous. Volkswagen does not want you hitting a deer or worse even though you are attempting to transform down the heater, so it added tile-like modules to the property display screen so that usually-utilized attributes these types of as the local weather manage system’s settings are exhibited entrance and heart at all situations. These co-exist with other menus, like the navigation method and leisure possibilities. You can change, say, the heater lover speed with no leaving the navigation screen. Saving two or 3 faucets of a touchscreen could possibly audio completely trivial, but it tends to make a significant variation while driving.
Volkswagen’s commitment to preserving the driver concentrated extends past the touchscreen. In the driver’s seat, you confront a digital instrument cluster which is embedded into the dashboard and a great deal more compact than the device equipped to the ID.4, while an augmented-truth head-up display screen shows supplemental facts, this sort of as navigation directions. The ID.7 also attributes what the corporation phone calls “smart air vents” — they are electronically managed, and changes will need to be manufactured via the touchscreen (earlier mentioned left). This setup will just take a certain amount of time to get applied to, but at least it is fairly intuitive. Significant, vague swipes of the display permit you to transfer unique vents alternatively, you can use voice instructions to direct the air in which you want it to go. “Hello, Volkswagen, my hands are cold” summons heat air on your palms. So, it is effective, but we’d love to fulfill the individual who finds all that more quickly and more hassle-free than leaning ahead a little bit and transferring a toggle half an inch.
To further drive property the “flagship” place, Volkswagen makes upmarket options out there in the ID.7. Globally, purchasers will be able to configure the ID.7 with massaging 14-way ability entrance seats, 30-color ambient lights, and a 14-speaker Harman Kardon audio technique. It is far too early to explain to which capabilities will be available in The us, nonetheless.
My time guiding the wheel of the ID.7 was spent in a pre-generation, thoroughly-camouflaged prototype on the squiggly roadways that operate by way of the mountains north of Alicante, Spain. It normally takes a few of turns to notice that this large sedan doesn’t drive like a rear-wheel-drive car. This is partially thanks to the large battery pack mounted underneath the cabin, where it lowers the heart of gravity and places it in the middle of the car. The final result is managing that is far more balanced and less playful than you’d assume from a rear-pushed, rear-engined sedan. It’s silent and snug higher than all, and Volkswagen fitted a five-link rear axle that aids produce the sort of sleek, predictable ride you want on a extended generate.
I could not coax everyone at Volkswagen into telling me the ID.7’s body weight, but I consider it is not gentle (EVs hardly ever are). And however, it feels fairly speedy — 282 horsepower isn’t enormous, but 402 pound-ft is nearly on par with a V8-driven Ford F-150, and the motor’s whole torque output is out there off the line. This is a boon in the mountains, in which you’re continuously slowing down for a convert, accelerating, crawling behind a team of cyclists, and passing when the chance arises. I’d guess it also helps make the ID.7 suitable at property on the freeway, though further than a brief previously mentioned-the-restrict stint, I was not ready to exam better speeds. It has to: Freeway-worthiness is an crucial trait in the constitution of a big German sedan’s character.
Volkswagen programmed 4 driving modes called Eco, Consolation, Sport, and Personal, which are accessible conveniently via an icon at the top rated of the touchscreen. Comfort and ease is the default profile, and the one that best suits the ID.7’s character. Sport sprinkles a sprint of functionality in excess of the general working experience but stops limited of turning the ID.7 into a GLI. The throttle response gets to be sharper, but the steering continues to be light-weight and the suspension program does not experience markedly various. It is hardly ever overly firm, it keeps too much body roll in examine, but it was clearly tuned with consolation in thoughts. Eco neuters the car to preserve driving range, and Individual allows the driver dial in different settings to create a custom profile.
When you’ve picked out (or designed) a profile, you have obtained an additional preference to make: D or B. Folks driving an ID.4 will be acquainted with these solutions. Depart the gear selector in D and the ID.7 coasts when you carry your foot off the accelerator. The drivetrain recuperates vitality, but it mainly occurs at the rear of the scenes and you need to action on the brake pedal (or, in Volkswagen-speak, the pause button) to appear to a complete quit. Flicking the equipment selector into B delivers a visible, a single-pedal-driving-helpful sum of regen, in particular when Sport method is engaged. There is no suitable or mistaken answer: It is a matter of preference. Dialing in supplemental regen concentrations would not harm, as in the different Hyundai/Kia models that will also occur to a cease by them selves, but there is a little something to be claimed for preserving it straightforward.
I’ll need to have to hold out till I invest time in a manufacturing product to make a decision if the ID.7 justifies the flagship label, but my early impressions are favourable. It doesn’t check out to be something it’s not: It provides significant-automobile consolation and engineering without the need of masquerading as an different to the Audi A8 or hoping to make the driver feel it can outrun a BMW M3 on Laguna Seca. How it will be welcomed in the United States, the place the big sedan market place appears to be like like the National Museum of Natural History’s dinosaur area, relies upon mostly on whether it is really priced like a flagship or like a Volkswagen flagship.
Built in Emden, Germany, for the American and European markets, and in China for China, the Volkswagen ID.7 will make its international debut on April 17. Pricing and full requirements will be released in the weeks top up to its on-sale date. Income in the United States are scheduled to start off in 2024.
