 Last year, when Volkswagen unveiled its first long-range electric vehicle for the US, the ID.4, it warned us not to make the obvious comparisons to other electric vehicles like Tesla. That's because Volkswagen says its real competition is all the popular gas-powered compact SUVs like the Ford Escape, Honda CR-V, and Toyota RAV4. VW has its eyes on a higher prize, not just the most popular electric vehicle in its segment, but the most popular vehicle on the road, period. Did they succeed? Well, I've only had the ID.4 for a couple days, but I can comfortably say that the ID.4 is both a great EV and a really excellent midsize SUV. It has plenty of range for daily driving and short trips. The technology inside feels intuitive without being in your face. And the really surprising thing is the whimsicality of the ID.4, like VW wants you to just have fun while driving it. The ID.4's origins aren't so playful. The car wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for Dieselgate, the massive emissions cheating scandal that nearly crippled VW five years ago. As part of its many settlements, VW promised to spend billions of dollars towards electric vehicles. That's why they're releasing the ID.4 now, and not two or three years from now when the EV market is a bit more mature. Consider it an apology for all the extra pollution created by their diesel vehicles. And as far as apologies go, the ID.4 is a pretty great start. Let's talk about the car itself. There are three different trim levels, the Pro, the Pro S, and the First Edition, which is the one that we have here, and obviously the first one available for sale. The cheapest model, the Pro with rear wheel drive, will retail for $39,995, but when you factor in the $7,500 federal tax incentive plus any local and state tax credits, the ID.4 lands in that low to mid $30,000 range that's generally considered the sweet spot for most US car buyers. There are six exterior colors to choose from. We got the blue dusk, which I think is really cool. It pops without being too ostentatious. The First Edition ID.4 is expected to get 250 miles of range on a single charge, but that hasn't been certified yet by regulators. It's possible that the EPA will rate the ID.4 with less than 250 miles of range, which could drive away those customers who have extreme range anxiety. Either way, it's not as much as a Tesla Model 3 or the Model Y, but I think it'll suit most people's needs. VW says every effort has been made to optimize aerodynamics. You can see that with the swooping lines in the body of the vehicle, the large roof spoiler, and with the door handles that are flush against the side. Again, not exactly revelatory. A lot of EVs have similar features, but it does show that VW is thinking seriously about ways that it can improve range. This version has an 82 kilowatt hour battery, which is located in the floor of the vehicle, helping create a really low center of gravity. The electric motor is located in the rear of the vehicle, which is similar to the Volkswagen Beetle. You can feel that when you're on a winding road and the ID.4 is just really hugging the curves. There are four driving modes, Eco, Comfort, Sport, and a custom setting that allows drivers to pick and choose from the other modes to best suit their own style. It's got a pretty good oomph for an EV with 201 horsepower and 228 pound feet of torque. It can sprint from zero to 60 in a little over seven seconds, which is nowhere near as fast as Tesla's performance models. While driving, you would expect a low-grade motor were common with EVs, and you'd be right. No noisy combustion engine under the hood means no noise radiating throughout the vehicle's interior. As you accelerate, the motor definitely emits a higher-pitched sound, but it's not distracting. There is a fake sound that the vehicle makes at low speeds, as required by law to alert pedestrian and cyclists. It's kind of a video game-ish, Nintendo-ish sound that legit made me laugh when I first heard it. One of my favorite parts about the ID.4 are the front and rear lights. Normally, I'm not into illuminated vehicle badges, but there's just something appealing about the light bar stretching across the full width of the vehicle. It's the ID.4's way of saying, hey, I'm an electric car, without exactly clubbing you over the head with it. There's actually a lot of cool lighting accents all over this vehicle. At nighttime, a hexagonal light emanates from both the driver and passenger door handles and projects on the ground. Inside the vehicle, a light bar runs along the base of the windshield that serves as a communication device. If you're using the navigation and you're about to turn right, a blue light will move left to right across the width of the windshield to signal that you're about to make a turn. It also serves as a status bar when you're charging the vehicle. I thought it seemed gimmicky at first, but seeing it in action, I found it to be actually pretty helpful. And the interior lights are all adjustable. There are 30 different colors to choose from. Are the adjustable lights absolutely necessary? No, but are they fun to play with? Yes. More evidence of VW's quirky designs are the play and pause pedals. I remember seeing these a few years ago in VW's ID Buzz electric micro bus concept and thinking they seemed really stupid. But now I kinda get it. I mean, you can't call it a gas pedal when the car runs on electrons, right? So why not play and pause? There are two screens, a 5.3 inch instrument cluster behind the steering wheel and a 12 inch one in the center console. It's nice to see a pair of screens that don't completely dominate the interior. The UX is totally fine, but for those who prefer their smartphone's interface, the ID.4 supports both wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. The screens look great. They were bright and vibrant and the colors really popped. There's a home button on the left side of the screen for easy access and the default software felt similar enough to CarPlay that I was fine using either. That said, the ID.4's navigation is not as clean looking as Google Maps, but that's usually the case with most cars today. There aren't any physical buttons, but there are haptic feedback ones that felt really satisfying to touch. There's a voice assistant which is activated by saying, hello ID, and it worked pretty well. Hello ID. Turn my seat heater on. Okay, warming now. Hello ID. Change the ambient lighting to blue. Please select an ambient lighting setting on the screen. You gotta make me do it like that? Sometimes I found I had to repeat myself to really get it to work. I mean, it's definitely not as advanced as the new Volvos with native Android Auto. And there's gesture control, as you can see, that works pretty well. Sometimes, other times not so much. I can see that as being something that probably most people don't end up using. I didn't experience a lot of lagginess in my time with the ID.4, but there were a few sticky spots. Now, the ID.4 will accept over-the-air software updates in the future, so it's not anything that Volkswagen can't fix. Now, Volkswagen is new to OTA updates, so it remains to be seen how they will actually approach it. The panoramic roof is similar to what's found in most Teslas these days, and was really a joy to sit under. The white leather in the first edition was a nice touch, and the air vents are real air vents with open and close knobs. So this might be the car for you if you find Tesla's digital air vents off-putting. The ID.4 uses a front radar, front camera, two rear radars, and eight ultrasound sensors to see the world around it. The driver assist system, not as advanced as Autopilot or Super Cruise, but it does have the standard features like adaptive cruise control, automatic emergency braking, blind spot detection, and pedestrian monitoring. Let's talk charging. The ID.4 comes with an 11 kilowatt onboard charger that'll charge the vehicle to full in seven and a half hours at home or at a public level two charger. As with most EVs, it's not recommended to charge the ID.4 on a normal 120 volt outlet, because the rate of charging is practically glacial. At a DC fast charging station with 125 kilowatt charging available, the ID.4 can charge from five to 80% in about 38 minutes. Now the challenge, of course, is finding a public charger that actually provides that much power. A lot of public chargers really only provide about half as much as that. One of the big selling points for the ID.4 is three years of free charging with VW's Electrify America charging network. Now like Tesla, VW has skin in the game when it comes to electric vehicle charging infrastructure. And that'll go a long way to luring shoppers away from the warm embrace of combustion engine familiarity. Electrify America has approximately 470 charging stations in the US with over 2000 DC fast chargers. Though the company expects to install or have under development, approximately 800 stations with about 3,500 DC fast chargers by December, 2021. A fast, reliable network of charging stations will go a long way in selling the ID.4 to customers. The $40,000 price tag will help too. But it's still going to be tough for VW to siphon away buyers from low priced alternatives like the Honda CRV or Toyota RAV4, both of which are in the mid $20,000 range. Volkswagen is calling the ID.4 the most important vehicle since the launch of the Beetle. And it's really apparent that the company has put a lot of effort into making that true. The company has a legacy in the US that it wants to maintain and a lot of baggage to overcome. Unfortunately, the ID.4 is a really strong contender in a year that's going to be overloaded with electric crossovers. But if price is any indicator, it's going to be an uphill battle to make sure that Volkswagen's battery powered crossover crosses over into the mainstream. Hey, thanks for watching. If you want to see more stuff about electric vehicles, we just did a video about all of the electric vehicles that are coming out this year. Please check it out. We also did a great review of the Ford Mustang Mach-E. You should definitely check that out and definitely like and subscribe.