VW ID.4

As a new id4 owner (ev), having the same issue tbh.

Google maps doesn't seem to pick up half of the chargers that are on ABRP

VW Nav has them, but it's pretty poor for traffic and the interface is only alright.

Having a few other issues, mainly around the DCI ev card, which doesn't seem to cover the new Circle K chargers in Bray or the ESB super chargers in Carrickmines. Also not working on InstaVolt, despite them telling me it would.

Home charger going in next week and can't come soon enough, no idea how people manage without one.

never had an issue with losing GPS. I never heard of it , are you sure it’s well documented ?
The onboard maps take you to chargers.

Not sure where you heard about using Chinese software. VW invested in Rivian who are developing the software for them

the only time I have had an issue with ECars or IONITY is when the charger itself was faulty or my credit / debit card had expired

I use IOS. So no idea about android, but have never had any disconnections

The range on the new ID.4 is solid - up to 570 km WLTP, but honestly, I’ve never cared much about how far a car can go. A good EV should just tell you when and where to charge, without making you plan like you're prepping for a moon landing. I get that some people like to map everything out ahead of time, but that’s exactly the problem. I’ve got two small kids and a four-hour drive across the country. I want to hop in the car and go, not scroll through apps trying to find a charger.
Yes, chargers are well signposted, but manually hunting one down on Google Maps during the return leg felt clunky. That’s where I think EV ownership starts to wear people down. And I can’t stress this enough: most women I know don’t care about all this tech stuff the way men do. They don’t want to plan trips around chargers or fiddle with apps to run their car. It’s a geeky dad obsession.

In China, people aren’t buying European EVs for similar reasons. They’re busy and just want to drive. Volkswagen seems to have clocked this with their latest in-car navigation system. It looks promising on paper, everything’s there, albeit a bit cluttered, but the problem is, it doesn’t work. If I had the choice, I’d go for a car with built-in Android Automotive. I don’t want to rely on my phone to run my car.

Watch the documentary on VW’s recent struggles on YouTube. It dives into why they’ll likely partner with a Chinese firm to design their next-gen in-car software. Honestly, I’m pretty tech-tolerant and usually happy to figure things out, but on a long family trip, the ID.4 was a nightmare. And it’s only a few months old.

The car keeps losing its location data

Thats not normal. Its a new car so you need to send it in for diagnosis and fixing. Boards wont fix that!

the car reset itself more than once to 80% charge during our trip, even though I’d set it to 100% the night before.

Thats by design. Its to prevent people from setting it to 100% and then leaving it at that setting and having the battery sitting at 100% all the time which you know is bad for the battery. You can disable that setting but obviously not recommended… I think its called "battery care mode".

The car should be smart enough to say, “You’ll need to charge on this route, would you like to pick a charger?” Then it should tell you when to arrive, how long to charge, and when to leave to reach your destination.

I've a new ID.3 and it does this. It also preheats the battery once you have selected a charge point as your destination. It works fine.

Wireless CarPlay also works fine. An occasional disconnect.

What version software is your car running? Is it v5.x?

Whatever it is running, I do agree that the software isnt as good as the competition but it does the job fine.

You have a mixture of issues, not all of which are the cars fault! 😉

Ill rewatch it but what I took from it initially is that they are investing in China for technology to improve their cars.

https://youtu.be/Nb-SEJxaa20?si=N4dAOH7t6_UcW-DB

I think you’ve got it spot on in your first paragraph. It’s all just a bit too much.

I notice this overcomplication mostly in VAG group cars. Sure, plenty of others that rely on your phone for navigation have their quirks too. I’ve never liked relying on my phone in the car, and that’s my main issue here. I was delighted to see that in the new ID.4s, the car’s own map system has chargers well integrated. You can even filter by kilowatt, which is a really well-thought-out feature. But once that stopped working, it just felt like everything went downhill. With Android Auto, you’re waiting a good minute or two for it to connect, and I don’t think phone-based navigation is the way forward at all. Phones are naturally prone to losing connectivity in the car, so VW really needs to improve its own system and stop relying on Android or Apple CarPlay for maps that don't really know you're in an EV as well as they should. The system looked good but I could almost predict as did my wife that it would let us down mid trip and it did. She drives around the country for work and finds the car unreliable in that respect.

The rest is just stuff that’s painful about the car, the overly sensitive speed limit beeping, key fobs not working properly, electric windows not working for 20 seconds when the car’s idle. Like I said above, the whole thing just felt clunky. If VW has actually bought shares in Rivian, at least they’ll see how good Rivian’s Android Automotive system is.

When they are designing these cars, they should test them on people over 60. It's like the public chargers. They really don't need to be that complicated.

My Polestar has always just worked. It’s a really straightforward car to use. Scheduling a charge is exactly how it should be. Press a button, set your on and off times with the timing wheel, and you’re done. When I use maps, it instantly picks up if I’ll need to charge along the route. It shows my exact battery percentage on arrival, clearly outlines how long I’ll need to charge, and displays the rest of the journey in one easy-to-read graphic. It always picks the fastest chargers, tells me how many are available, and lets me switch easily, like if I decide I’d rather use an EBS charger instead of Ionity. The simple user interface and reliability is what makes it work.

The car’s Wi-Fi has gone AWOL twice in three years, but that was more of a general system hiccup, something I could diagnose and fix myself. I’ve never had any real connectivity issues with apps or maps, and I don’t use my phone in the car except for calls. If I don’t want that, I just switch off Bluetooth.

It’s never been buggy. As it’s aged and had a few software updates, things like Spotify occasionally crash, and the system’s a little laggy, but nothing you’d really notice. I’ve heard the newer Polestars have had some issues, and I’d chalk that up to them moving away from Volvo. I’m curious to try one of the newer models at some point to see what its like. Same goes for Tesla, Rivian, Renault, Lucid, their systems are all simple and easy to use and I think VAG need to work on simplifying theirs so its reliable which I think is my main gripe here. I want the car to be good. We've always had VWs and generally really like them.

Cheers

Ive only the car a month and getting used to ev so trial and error a bit.

The VW maps did not seem as good as Google maps for traffic but ive only done it a few times. I'll give it a few more chances. Though using it the other day beside carrickmines it was missing a new road.

Like others ive had no problem with android auto connection or GPS dropping out. My phone does get very hot on wireless charge when wireless to AA? So I tend to connect with USB. This a known issue?

I do have a couple of things I'd change on the id4. But by and large great car that makes the change to ev very easy.

When you start the car and want to select B. I have to select D and then let go and then push forward again for B. This one is odd. As the gear selector very obviously has 2 forward clicks. Am I doing something wrong?

Secondly the key fob is poor. Keyless works very well (boot is hit and miss) . But the fob is just poor. This a known issue? Any remedy?

Very minor rattle from front left interior door trim. Anyone got experience of this?

And the last one ACC "bend ahead" but no bend? Happens on m1 north after airport on straight road. Anyway to turn off?

But overall im happy I picked the vw. Had option of Y or Ioniq. In fairness new Y is nice. But few in work ordering id4 after seeing mine.

Cheers

VW missed a trick on the selector so.

The 2 positions in forward are intuitive for D or B.

I have that setting done to ignore limits. Still slows for bends. Which works well on real bends. The phantom ones not so much 😇

But overall a great car couple snags that vw could iron handy enough

Never bought new before, do people get some money off the sticker price or are they all fixed prices or possible to haggle a few extras?