Volkswagen ID. Cross concept review: your next electric micro-SUV?

What’s the point of driving a concept car?

Oh, microscopic, if it’s even there at all. Concept cars are 2D starlets built to twirl about at motor shows and perhaps crawl onto a stage alongside a grinning, equally polished CEO.

They’re not for test driving. Especially not in gale-force winds, in sideways rain with a smattering of sea-foam on the Atlantic coast of Portugal in November.

And yet here we are…

We are indeed, because Volkswagen offered us a quick steer in its ID. Cross concept, which is a big deal so far as VW’s electric strategy rethink goes.

The first tranche of ID models didn’t really know what they wanted to be. The ID.3 was a tall, frumpy hatchback with delusions of Golf-usurping grandeur. The ID.4 was sort of its crossover cousin, but more in the raised estate ‘allroad’ mould which no-one buys rather than a proper SUV. No-one’s quite sure what the ID.5 was. Scholars will ponder that question for all time.

So as you may have heard, the ID family is having a big ol’ rethink. Next year we’ll meet the ID. Polo, which is a much more traditional supermini that just happens to be electric. It’ll have familiar looks and a household name, because Volkswagen has figured out binning off decades of trusted heritage probably isn’t the smartest tactic when the Koreans and Chinese are hungrily carving up your kingdom.

There’ll surely be an ID. Golf and an ID. Passat soon enough. The VW ID. Every1 will morph into a cute Up replacement to battle the adorable new Renault Twingo. And this ID. Cross is essentially an electric SUV sized somewhere around the T-Cross and T-Roc.

Is it a wacky concept car made of space rock and dry ice?

No. This is a nod-wink 'concept car' which is suspiciously normal. It’s got regular door handles instead of touch-sensitive lumps of kryptonite. It sensibly shuns augmented reality cameras for door mirrors, and it’s even sporting windscreen wipers. Handy when the sea is trying to invade the test route.

Open the tailgate and it rises electrically. There’s a fully carpeted boot. Said carpet is impractically light-coloured, but it’s all there – the normal stuff. Thorben Kochs from VW’s exterior design team even points out that crease at the very base of the boot door is there to get the production car into a lower insurance group, because it affords the bumper some extra crumple room in a rear-end collision. On a concept car? Yeah, right…

So where are the concept car bits?

Well the ID. Cross rides on enormous 21in wheels, which give it the sort of wheel-body ratio you normally find on a quarry-dwelling dump truck. The wheelarch trim is dimpled like a Golf GTI’s gear knob – apparently it adds strength as well as a utilitarian look – but Thorben glumly shrugs it’ll almost certainly be binned for production.

And inside, it’s a gloriously welcoming carpet showroom that appears to have been made from tropical beach sand. If only ambience this bright and cheery could remain for the production car. Somehow we doubt it’ll hold the same Caribbean appeal when it’s swathed in fifty shades of Wolfsburg grey.

What’s the new era of IDs like inside then?

A dramatic improvement over the first set. Ignore the décor and focus on the hardware. The panel of physical rocker switches for adjusting temperature, fan speed, air recirculation and so on. No greasy unlit haptic sliders here. And the screen interface itself seems more clearly laid out than in current VWs. The home button is easier to find. It’s cleaner and crisper.

Now focus on the steering wheel. Thorben says it’s the production-spec item, albeit wrapped in a beach towel. He’s keen to point out the central boss is just that – central – so the wheel never invades driver knee-room when cranked over. It’s also festooned with physical buttons. Sure, they’re dummies milled from metal, but while the materials will change, the functionality will remain. Praise be.

It seems VW will persevere with the ‘ID. Light’, the LED strip which traces around the dashboard’s perimeter and is supposed to pulse and react to voice commands. Top Gear’s never been convinced it’s anything other than a gimmick. But we’ll forgive that, because we’re in an ID with four window switches. Wonders shall never cease. Ashen-faced, Thorben admits the rear window controls were ‘a request from customers worldwide’. That’ll teach the penny-pinchers.

Any other interior observations?

The giant jutting centre console puts wireless charging front and centre. But it makes reaching the cupholder trench beneath a right struggle. What’s more important to people: juiced devices, or juiced kidneys? Don’t answer that.

So come on then. Does it move under its own power?

It does, bless it. It’s not especially happy about it. Neither is the car’s minder who is worried about the seal-free doors, which clank shut like an allotment shed, allowing the salty maelstrom into the one-off cabin.

So no, the production car won’t whine like a milk float when you accelerate. Its steering won’t be 1980s Lambo heavy and you won’t be worried about rubbing the giant tyres on the inner wheelarches when cranked over on full steering lock. Though in fairness, of all the concept cars I’ve driven in eleven years at Top Gear, the ID Cross was the least shonky. And completely reliable.

What does this tell us about the ID Cross I can buy in the next few years?

The production car? That’ll probably feel just like a Skoda Elroq. Or an Audi Q4 e-tron. Or a Cupra Tavascan. And that’s the problem for the mighty VW Group in the age of platform-shared EVs. How to make one distinct – especially when Volkswagen hardly has ‘outlandish styling’ to fall back on.

Perhaps it’s a more tactile, grown-up interior. The signs are certainly there that Volkswagen is coming out of the doldrums on that front.