Volkswagen ID.3 - long-term review

After 2,900 miles driving this second ID.3, it's fair to see how it compares with the earlier one. Obvious difference is battery size and hence better range, but we'll come to that. The bigger battery is heavier, and all ID vehicles are too heavy. This one so much that its suspension isn't designed for the weight of five people and luggage, so it has only four seatbelts. On one occasion this has embarrassed me.

But to drive it feels lighter than the earlier 58kWh version, because it has the optional 'Exterior Pack Plus' that includes adaptive dampers and progressive-rate steering, and also 20in wheels.

My individual drive mode stiffens the dampers and partially loosens the traction control, and suddenly this is a car that steers more sharply and behaves more engagingly than the other floaty numb ID3, and indeed than the large majority of normal hatches and crossovers. The same pack also adds matrix headlamps. My favourite thing in winter. It further gives gangsta rear tints and a LED front lightbar which are pretty but you don't see them when you're in the car. That pack is £2,450 and worth it.

The other big-ticket item is 'Driver Assistance Pack Plus', mainly consisting of Level 2 assistance, and self-parking. The former is quite relaxing on motorways, but I'd be perfectly happy without it and really its main use is to keep a second eye on the car's course and direction while half my attention is being distracted by the slow-acting touchscreen. The self-parking I have used six times now, but only out of curiosity. If you can't park you shouldn't be driving.

An 'Interior Pack' brings a fancy HUD. At £770, inessential. Then there's a £1,050 heat pump but it's summer so that's not doing me any good, but will help resale.

The big battery, then. Here in mid-2024 en-route rapid charging is very easy in nearly all the UK nearly all the time, so in the 58kWh car the rhythm of three hours' driving then half an hour rapid charging was no problem. Yet I've been surprised in this 77kWh version how nice it is not to have to think about it. I've done London to Blackpool, and London to Cornwall (that's the rainy photos) twice all without stopping, then each time slow-charged overnight and come home.

Also a return trip of London to Lotus in Hethel (see photos), which is 200 miles and tricky in a few of the 280-mile WLTP cars I've had, but in this ID.3 left me with a third of the battery spare.

In fact I've done up to 280 miles' real driving – Blackpool to London and then Heathrow return – and still had eight per cent in the battery. Here's a photo of it with some other EVs, the Heathrow POD park carriages. I once ran an MX-5 and would always stop for fuel before 260 miles. I don't yet know how quickly this 77kWh rapid-charges, because unlike a petrol car I've never in 2,900 miles had to stop to replenish it. All the charging has been while I slept.

Soon I'll be driving to Northumberland with Top Gear photographer Jonny Fleetwood, who has a phobia of EVs, convinced we'll run flat or be delayed ages to charge. It's like my daughter's phobia of spiders: no amount of rational explanation will calm it. Jonny and I have done thousands of EV miles together without a hitch, but I still expect him to be biting his knuckles and whingeing all the way to Alnwick and back.