without these problems it was a very good car

Our car tester Rutger drove the Volkswagen ID.7, the German automaker’s new all-electric, for a month. Today he says goodbye and gives his conclusions.

I drove the Volkswagen ID.7 for four weeks. And I will miss him. Like my children, I may have been too strict about his shortcomings, because now that he is leaving home I feel a little sad and guilty. The Volkswagen ID.7 is a very good passenger car. Softer suspension than the Tesla Model S, more economical than the Hyundai Ioniq 5, and more cargo space than the Mercedes-Benz EQE. With navigation that guides you to old toll stations, long journeys are also stress-free.

Why, Rutger, did you complain so much about the shortcomings? Without wanting to repeat myself, I will mention them again: the buttons on the steering wheel that make it possible to control the volume precisely and it is very easy to accidentally go 10 km / h at a speed of 10 km / h on the cruise control instead of 1 km / h. The voice assistant understood me effortlessly at one point and was downright stupid the next time she tried with such wishes.

Confusion with the navigation system

The fact that the navigation maps are not updated online daily for road work is not ideal. But the fact that a road that has existed since July 2020 is not included in the map is quite surprising.

I may be slightly exaggerating those minor annoyances. Why? Because the ID.7 is so close to such a great car that those small, easily solvable problems are incomprehensible to me. Because yes, I can navigate using Google Maps, but I no longer have navigation instructions displayed on the windshield. With an arrow, in augmented reality, that moves dynamically with the bend, so I can see exactly which turn I need to take. That’s a really cool feature, which I can’t use because my cards are all the way back. The ring around Groningen has been under renovation for years, which means that new routes have to be run every week or that the exits are closed. If my car doesn’t know that and Google doesn’t, I’m forced to not use that augmented reality navigation and that hurts.

It frustrates me that ID.7 has the potential to be 9.5, but it doesn’t go above 8 due to the minor issues that need to be fixed that you get every day. That is of course completely private. Because you can drive without augmented reality navigation, get used to the buttons by using them longer and drive a comfortable long-range cruiser that keeps you between the lanes and the distance from your predecessor and that doesn’t tell you exactly where. how long do you charge?

Many things are better

I will miss this great Volkswagen. Because of the comfortable seats, massage setting, flexible chassis, excellent 360-degree camera, cruise control that automatically adjusts to maximum speed and brakes before cornering. And in the meantime, I really hope that Volkswagen wraps up the Skoda Enyaq steering wheel set with real buttons and that they contact their map provider to ask why Schilligeham in Winsum is not on the map.

With a starting price of 60,000 euros, the ID.7 offers you a good touring car with a large luggage compartment, good driver assistance systems and a lot of comfort. Unless you start browsing among SUVs, you won’t find a direct competitor.

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