The Top Gear car review: Volkswagen ID.3

Welcome to the first fruit borne by the Volkswagen ID tree. Before long, there’ll be a family of all-electric IDs: SUV-shaped ones, a saloon and at the heart of the range, this Golf-sized family hatch. The ID3 (they call it the ‘ID.3’, but it looks clumsy, so we’ll forget the decimal point) is a rival to the likes of the Nissan Leaf and BMW i3, but it’s also a crucial car for Volkswagen as it forges toward a new battery-powered era, seeking to clean up its oily reputation and silence the doubters who rage against the German giant for being too ponderous in taking electro-mobility seriously. 

So, Volkswagen needs the ID3 to sell in vast numbers, not simply virtue-signal from the corner of the showroom. As a result, there’s very little going on here that’ll alarm or confuse the traditional Golf customer. 

The ID3 is a five-door, five-seat hatchback, with a boot at the back and a motor beneath driving the rear wheels. The steering wheel and infotainment screen jump across from the latest Golf 8. Sure, you can jazz up the paintwork with some Nineties hues and polka-dot graphics, but the overall silhouette is a streamlined monobox, kinda like an overgrown Up that’s off to Bonneville speed week. 

The overhangs are short, the wheelbase elongated, because the front doesn’t have to accommodate a hefty engine and cooling system. The long wheelbase is good news for packaging the battery downstairs, and humans above. And the drag factor is a svelte 0.27, even though it’s a tall machine with door mirrors, not new-fangled cameras. So you have a car that’s compact in the city for parking, but roomy enough for family trips. A definite plus.

Because the ID3 is based on a bespoke electric car-only platform (it’s codenamed MEB, and worth remembering as you’ll be hearing a lot more about cars spun off it in the coming years), VW can be agile when it comes to offering different versions. So, at the top of the range there’ll also be a 78kWh battery version good for a Tesla-troubling 341 miles of range. 

Entry-level ID3s will offer just over 200 miles at best, via a 45kWh power pack. It’s rear-drive only for now – there’ll be an SUV-shaped ID4 along presently to fill the dual-motor niche – but it’s possible VW will add a twin-motor ID3 to the range later on, in the form of a an ‘ID3 R’, VW’s first electric hot hatch.

For now, we’ll concentrate on the version we’ve tested, which is the one that’ll arrive first in the UK this autumn: the ID3 1st Edition, logic fans. It houses a 58kWh battery, driving a rear-mounted electric motor providing an ample 201bhp and 184lb ft. More than you got from a Mk5 Golf GTI, that.

The WLTP claimed range is 260 miles, and it’ll accept charge at anything up to a 100kW rapid charger. It costs £35,880 after the government-funded (or should that be taxpayer-funded?) £3k grant is deducted, and it’s groaning with kit. Question is, will these early adopters be pleased with what they’ve stuck their neck out for? Most likely, yes – so long as you’re not hoping for anything truly radical.