As Volkswagen's cheapest electric vehicle and the first model in the Era of Volkswagen Electrification, it can be said that the Volkswagen ID.3 meets everyone's expectations for personalized and boutique electric cars. With a joint venture brand on the head, plus a price of 150,000-170,000, ID.3 is somewhat electric golf, and even a little electric small steel cannon expectation, so how does this electric car made by this traditional brand perform?
01
Is this 170,000 Volkswagen car worth it?
Vigorously developing new energy vehicles is our national industrial strategy, after experiencing the chaotic stage of deception, the domestic market has left a number of excellent new energy vehicle companies after the big wave. At this stage, with a budget of less than 200,000 yuan, if you want to buy a new energy vehicle that can be directly licensed, almost all of them are independent brands.
Before ID.3, if you want to buy a more stylish pure electric hatchback under a budget of 150,000 for daily commuting in the city, you don't have many options, BYD e2, Euler good cat, that's all (the rest are basically SUVs), and you may still think that their brand is not loud enough.
As a small tram with a length of only about 4.2 meters, the price of the ID.3 is not low at first glance. But in fact, ID.3 caters to those who pay more attention to the brand aura and sense of quality: perhaps it is intended to buy golf, but it is in a double-limit city (limited purchase restriction); perhaps as the Nth family to buy a vegetable car, do not worry about charging problems, figure it saves money and worry (no need to refuel and maintain is also simple); or perhaps it is purely attracted by its soft and cute shape and smooth pure electric driving experience...
The joint venture pure electric hatchback within 200,000 yuan actually has two sister models, the Buick Micro Blue 6 and the Chevrolet Tour, but they are actually closer to the station wagon and are more oriented towards the "towing home with mouth" family users.
In addition to these two cars, other joint venture brands also have some "oil-to-electricity" small SUVs at this price point, such as the Honda VE-1 and Peugeot e2008 (Toyota C-HR EV is more than 200,000).
The interior space of these small SUVs will be more spacious than the ID.3, but due to their "oil to electricity" nature, the layout of the battery in the bottom of the car is largely limited by its fuel gene frame, so the ground clearance of the chassis has no advantage of the SUV.
Therefore, in the range of 150,000-200,000, the Volkswagen ID.3 is indeed a rare German fashion pure electric car. If it just meets your needs, then it's clearly worth the money.
02
Accelerate testing
As the first model of Volkswagen's new MEB pure electric platform, the ID.3 can be said to have been born under the attention of the whole world. The software and hardware of the ID.series models under the MEB platform are all developed and realized on the ID.3, and it can be said that this car is not only the starting point of the Volkswagen electrification era, but also the essence of the MEB platform models.
We conducted an acceleration test on the ID.3 (air conditioning off + sport mode) with professional equipment, and the measured acceleration score was 7.91 seconds. From the chart below, you can see that the g-value of the initial stage of the start remains relatively high, reaching 0.5g, and the power output of the entire acceleration process is linear.
Let's take a look at the performance of the opponent, using the 350N·m front-drive motors Buick Micro Blue 6 and Chevrolet Patrol, their motors are more torqueable, the body weight is lighter, but their zero hundred acceleration time is about 9.5 seconds. In contrast, the rear-drive ID.3, although the torque is a little less and the car is a little heavier, but the acceleration is still about a second faster.
As for the battery, endurance and charging, the domestic ID.3 only 57.3kWh this kind of capacity version, the official NEDC endurance of 430km, fast charging can reach 80% of the power in 45 minutes, slow charging takes 8.5 hours to fill. It is worth mentioning that the actual performance of the full power is about 330km, but the electric vehicles of the Volkswagen ID series, the performance data are very real, if it is not particularly violent driving, the table shows that 330km can really drive to 330km.
03
Brake test
ID.3 can choose B gear, at this time the vehicle's kinetic energy recovery will be significantly enhanced, and loosening the brakes will have a significant deceleration. However, its deceleration is relatively gentle, and it is far from reaching the single-pedal mode of other models, which is as strong as if it is stepping on the brakes, which is obviously more comfortable for both drivers and passengers. In addition, in B-gear mode, the vehicle does not completely slow down to a standstill, and the brakes still need to be manually stepped on.
As for the brake system, the ID.3 brake foot feeling is very heavy, but the initial braking force is too gentle, and it will be obvious to step deeply to reduce the effect, which is easy to cause a careless step into a sharp brake, this non-linear brake foot feeling requires a certain amount of time to adapt.
Although the light brake has a feeling of being unstoppable, after our actual tests, the ID.3 braking performance is quite outstanding, from 100km/h speed braking stop only 35.37 meters, no need to worry about the front disc and rear drum braking form is not strong enough.
From the braking curve, it can be seen that the acceleration of the ID.3 is maintained at about -1.1g throughout the braking process, and the braking force is strong enough. The measured 35.37 meters is still quite good, compared to the lighter Buick Micro Blue 6 and Chevrolet Patrol, which are lighter and have disc brakes in front and rear, their braking performances are 37.47 meters and 40.98 meters, respectively. Although there is a certain error in the results tested in different venues, such a large gap is enough to explain the hardware strength of ID.3 in braking.
04
Winding test
The chassis of the Volkswagen ID.3 feels very mature, and as a traditional car company, there is no need to worry about this aspect. The front McPherson independent suspension is a conventional configuration at this level, with a simple structure and good performance. The rear multi-link independent suspension is much better dynamic than the non-independent suspension of the torsion beam of other cars of the same class, and the passenger comfort in the car is better when the unilateral wheels cross the ditch.
The shock absorbing spring tube shows obvious characteristics of front softness and rear toughness, and when dealing with most of the road bumps, it has a fairly good filter texture, coupled with the weight advantage brought by the battery, the whole car is very calm on the potholed road, maintaining the consistent sense of high-grade of the Volkswagen model. At the same time, the rear section provides strong support, and the roll of the vehicle is controlled quite well when cornering.
Through the pile winding test, we can feel the characteristics of a car's chassis suspension, steering reaction, tire grip, etc., and we can deeply experience the dynamic character of a car. Thanks to the high standards of this chassis, the ID.3 performed very well in both pile winding and elk tests.
05
Elk test
The situation of the elk test test is more extreme, it simulates the situation of the vehicle in the sudden encounter with road obstacles to make an emergency dodge, which not only puts forward requirements for the driver's control technology, how high the performance limit of the vehicle is more critical, improper operation can easily lead to vehicle loss of control.
The body length of the ID.3 is only about 4.2 meters, which is completely the size of a small car, but the wheelbase of 2765mm has reached the level of the B-class car, which is the advantage of the MEB pure electric platform model compared to the general oil-to-electric model, and the longer wheelbase makes the wheels closer to the four corners of the car, which improves the handling stability to a certain extent. This, combined with excellent chassis support and tire grip, gives the ID.3 a high handling limit when dealing with emergency gear changes.
06
Noise test
The pure electric model has no engine noise, and when driving, especially when accelerating sharply, the interior of the car feels very quiet. Id.3 in the stationary state, the car is indeed very quiet, only 34.3 decibels, this level is comparable to most new energy vehicles.
However, after driving, the overall sound insulation performance is more general, tire noise and wind noise are more directly into the car, in 60km/h, 90km/h, 120km/h measured noise values are 57.1 decibels, 64.2 decibels, 68.3 decibels, these values for a pure electric model is not low, but considering its entry-level positioning, naturally there is nothing wrong with it.
07
Summary
The ID.3 is a landmark model for Volkswagen, as important to the Volkswagen brand as the Beetle. After the advent of this car, it achieved good sales in Europe, but the domestic market did not have the fertile soil for hatchbacks to flourish like Europe, so the ID.3 had a certain scarcity in the domestic market. From the product itself, ID.3 has a soft and cute design, simple and elegant interior, many intelligent configurations, excellent handling performance, but in addition to these, the faith bonus brought by the public logo makes it more worthy of its price.