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The 2025 Volkswagen ID.7 encourages automobile customers to rethink the automobile versus the crossover. The newest and longest providing in VW’s rising ID household of electrical autos honors the basic touring automobile and modernizes it for the electrical age. Normal with a head-up show, obtainable with wonderful massaging seats, and styled like an Audi fastback, the ID.7 additionally factors Volkswagen into the premium section.
After driving it via the hills of southern France past Marseille, the one remaining query about VW’s intent for the ID.7 is how a lot of it’ll migrate over to the North American market. The 2025 ID.7 arrives within the U.S. within the second half of 2024 with both single-motor rear-wheel-drive or with dual-motor all-wheel drive powertrains, each fed by a 77-kwh usable battery pack (82 kwh gross). VW wouldn’t decide to bringing the bigger 85-kwh battery pack supplied in Europe to the U.S.
We gained’t know pricing or trims till subsequent yr, and our driving impressions are restricted to the rear-wheel-drive mannequin. We all know it will likely be imported from Germany and never made alongside the associated VW ID.4 in Chattanooga, Tennessee, so it gained’t qualify for the federal EV tax credit score.
Maybe most significantly, we all know that the lengthy hatchback makes for a snug, quiet, and clear cruising automobile with plenty of cargo area. Its charms, like its design, are understated within the Volkswagen manner. A chrome-like garnish accentuates how the roofline arcs into the tail like a fastback, the place the hatch presents crossover-like cargo quantity as an alternative of a sealed-off trunk. Up entrance, a decrease grille smiles between facet air intakes, and a lightweight bar binds the VW badge and runs via the skinny LED headlights right into a physique line to the wrap-around LED taillights.
2025 Volkswagen ID.7
2025 Volkswagen ID.7
2025 Volkswagen ID.7
Its understated design, which is typical for VW, won’t flip heads, however its effectivity ought to activate brains. The design components create a low 0.23 coefficient of drag, similar because the Tesla Mannequin 3 regardless that it’s sized extra just like the Tesla Mannequin S. Contemplate it an Arteon for the electrical age, however measuring 4 inches longer at 195.3 inches lengthy and with a 5.1-inch longer wheelbase of 117.0 inches. Volkswagen says it is the lowest slung mannequin in its rising ID household of electrical autos, however at 60.5 inches, it’s practically 4 inches taller than the Arteon thanks partly to the flat battery pack that takes up vertical area within the flooring.
How does the 2025 VW ID.7 drive?
A brand new motor and drive unit evolves from the system used within the ID.4. Extra windings and stronger magnets make it stronger with a score of 210 kw and an output of 282 hp and 429 lb-ft of torque, up from 201 hp and 229 lb-ft within the ID.4. It makes the ID.7 extra spirited than the ID.4, nevertheless it doesn’t leap off the road like different torque-rich EVs. The everlasting magnet motor takes the ID.7 from 0-62 mph in 6.5 seconds.
All that torque requires a discount gear, and the drive unit has a brand new inverter in addition to each air- and water-cooling to enhance efficiencies and cut back frictional losses. There’s loads of punch as soon as shifting, and passing trailers or different sluggish shifting visitors uphill is straightforward up till about 80 mph. The ID.7 tops out at 112 mph, which could have an effect on Germans on the Autobahn greater than North People.
4 drive modes—Eco, Consolation, Sport, and Particular person—provide slight modulations which are extra refined than pronounced. Sport mode quickens the accelerator response (whereas Eco turns it to mush), tightens the steering, and corporations up the obtainable adaptive dampers, whereas the Particular person mode presents extra granularity within the touchscreen between Consolation and Sport settings.
2025 Volkswagen ID.7
2025 Volkswagen ID.7
2025 Volkswagen ID.7
2025 Volkswagen ID.7
There’s no one-pedal driving, as VW depends on a lone regen brake setting of B on the column stalk. Since many of the braking occurs up entrance and thru the motor, VW nonetheless makes use of cheaper drum brakes on the rear wheels as an alternative of disc brakes that VW says have extra rolling resistance.
Responsive when known as upon, the ID.7 doesn’t depend on quickness for its charms. As a substitute, the hatchback impresses with its quiet serenity and stately calm whereas cruising. Wind and street noise from the usual 19-inch alloy wheels don’t announce itself till above freeway pace limits.
VW doesn’t offset the ID.7’s 4,788-pound curb weight with an air suspension, as an alternative counting on entrance struts and a multilink rear suspension supplemented with obtainable adaptive damping. It rides greater than most automobiles but decrease than electrical crossovers, and the load helps hold it planted. It doesn’t pitch ahead beneath heavy braking, and the damping offsets a few of the roll in corners. If in search of extra energy, contemplate the forthcoming dual-motor GTX mannequin.
VW ID.7 cabin consolation and creature options
Constructed for consolation, the single-motor ID.7 additionally showcases the newest in VW’s cabin consolation. Whereas heated energy entrance seats come customary, my tester got here with VW’s ergoActive bucket seats with massagers. These tremendous cozy seats are stuffed with ten air cushions. They provide quite a few therapeutic massage settings that final so long as 20 minutes, and so they assist push the ID.7 into the posh area.
The ID.7’s infotainment system and interface signify an enchancment over the ID.4. Bigger icons and a cleaner format on the 15.0-inch touchscreen, in addition to a extra logical menu construction, reduce how a lot time is spent on the display, and a configurable prime bar serves as automobile and drive mode controls, whereas the decrease local weather bar acts as sizzling buttons for the commonest local weather capabilities.
2025 Volkswagen ID.7
2025 Volkswagen ID.7
2025 Volkswagen ID.7
2025 Volkswagen ID.7
The local weather management sliders under the touchscreen are backlit for higher visibility, and they are often pressed down like a button so it’s simpler to regulate the temperature whereas in movement. New voice instructions localize the local weather to sure areas as effectively. In case your arms are chilly, you may say “Hey ID” to awaken it, then “Heat my arms” or “My arms are chilly” and the system will activate the heated steering wheel and level the vents towards the steering wheel space. Should you say “my ft are chilly,” the decrease vents will activate. Whilst you gained’t want Rosetta Stone or Duolingo to get alongside, there’s a studying curve and a few accents and inflections (Canadian feminine, specifically), can inadvertently awaken it.
Local weather dials and vent stalks are nonetheless simpler than adjusting the vents via the voice instructions or touchscreen. The benefit is a clear, uncluttered sprint.
VW minimizes the digital instrument cluster as effectively, so it’s the scale of a sweet bar. It reveals pace and state of cost, however most driving information resides in the usual head-up show. The augmented actuality show principally works effectively, however the blue traces within the flashing navigation steering can get washed out whereas carrying polarized sun shades.
Luckily, VW supplies a 3rd visible trick for navigation steering other than the head-up show and touchscreen. A blue mild bar on the inside cowl prompts when the navigation is ready; it blinks left to proper if you might want to recover from for a ramp, or pulses blue on the suitable facet if you might want to make a proper flip.
VW ID.7 hatchback design offers it versatility
The lengthy 117.0-inch wheelbase, which is an inch longer than the Ioniq 6’s, makes for a roomy, open cabin. Extensive door openings and the next floor clearance than most automobiles (VW didn’t have that spec at press time) make getting out and in straightforward, and the rounded roofline doesn’t chop off heads within the spacious again seats of the Volkswagen ID.7. At 5-foot-8, I may stack a fist on my head and it didn’t hit the ceiling.
4 adults match wonderful, and the rear center seat is best used as a cupholder or as a pass-through for longer objects within the hatch. The 60/40 cut up seats fold down from the seat tops or from a latch within the hatch, and regardless that it lacks the vertical peak of a crossover, the hatch is deeper than vast, and expands from 18.8 cubic ft to a crossover-like 56.0 cubic ft with the rear seats down. The flat load flooring can drop one other two inches for extra room, and two storage cubbies beneath can maintain the cost twine, or it may be stowed within the attaché case-like entrance trunk space.
2025 Volkswagen ID.7
2025 Volkswagen ID.7
2025 Volkswagen ID.7
2025 Volkswagen ID.7
VW ID.7 questions
There’s quite a bit we don’t know concerning the ID.7 within the U.S. Based mostly on what we do know, we count on a variety of about 350 miles with the single-motor powertrain, simply 11 miles shy of the Hyundai Ioniq 6. VW estimates that it’s going to use about 15.2 kwh each 62 miles, which equates to an environment friendly score of virtually 4.1 miles per kwh. If it maintains that fee on EPA testing, it will be among the many most effective electrical automobiles, alongside the Hyundai Ioniq 6 and Tesla Mannequin 3.
2025 Volkswagen ID.7
2025 Volkswagen ID.7
2025 Volkswagen ID.7
2025 Volkswagen ID.7
The ID.7 gained’t have bidirectional charging within the U.S. and it will probably’t cost as quick because the Hyundai Ioniq 6. At 175 kw on a DC quick charger, the ID.7 battery costs from 10 to 80% in 28 minutes. It additionally has an 11.0-kw onboard charger for 240-volt dwelling charging, however VW didn’t present these cost time estimates for the U.S. market.
As extra electrical autos enter the market, most of them being marketed as crossovers, the ID.7 serves as a refreshing reminder that an electrical sedan with a hatch could be an environment friendly and quiet cruiser with all types of creature comforts.
Volkswagen paid for airfare and lodging for Motor Authority to current this firsthand report.
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