Volkswagen ID.5 review

Let’s be honest, this interior isn’t up to the high standards we’ve come to expect from Volkswagen. Surely the idea of all these shared platforms across the wider group of carmakers is that it leaves a bit of room to spiff things up inside, or add a few extra nifty interior details?

There are brittle, cheap-feeling plastics across the dash, around the doors and where you might rest your knee – enough to question the thinking at Wolfsburg. By the company’s own admission the early adopter phase of EV take-up has passed, and it’s trying to attract a new crowd.

If it wants existing customers to move across then it’ll have to try a bit harder here. They will find that rear headroom hasn't been too heavily impacted by the introduction of a coupe roofline, though, and there's the usual array of plug sockets and whatnot to charge appliances around the car.

ARE YOU GOING TO SAY SOMETHING ABOUT BUTTONS NOW?

Well of course. We can sort of understand the thinking – shifting functions to the touchscreen systems means that you can play around with things as you release over-the-air updates, it gives carmakers the scope to offer drivers more flexibility with the features they want to use in their car. But at best it's annoying, at worst dangerous.

And one driver’s convenience is another driver’s supreme irritation. The car turns itself off when you get out of the driver’s seat, which is fine, but doesn’t help if you’re opening a garage door or reaching to pop your ticket in the car park machine. You might be more than happy to engage the services of the voice command system (which pops up uninvited with bizarre regularity) but for anyone else there are multiples of touchscreen menus to wade through and yet more precious attention removed from the task at hand.

THERE MUST BE SOME COOL TECH ONBOARD THOUGH?

There is, to be fair to the ID.5 – some ambitious and exciting tech, too. VW is proud of the latest versions of its cruise control and parking tech that came with the 3.1 version of its onboard system. We’ve not had much of a chance to play with these yet, but VW says that its satnav will offer smart routing depending on your driving style and how much charge you’ve got left in your battery, with strategic stops to make sure the whole journey is quicker and smoother.

The parking system helps you in and out of spaces, and will even rescue you if you’ve messed up a manoeuvre and got the car stuck. It’ll also memorise five different locations and learn how you’ve got into the parking space, repeating the manoeuvre every time you stop there. Fancy stuff.

WHAT ABOUT BOOT SPACE?

Good point. The ID.4’s boxy shape means it gets a rather cavernous 543-litre boot, but strangely the ID.5 actually beats that with a 549-litre split-level space back there. Still not enough to allow us to forgive the rest of the interior, though, and with the rear seats folded flat the ID.5’s 1,561 litres gives away 95 litres to the ID.

4.