Featured image by the author. Vehicle display images by the author.
Why Millennium Falcon? Well like the Falcon, the ID.4 is sort of big, sort of fast, and sort of nimble. But only sort of. There is no mistaking it for a 3-Series or S4 Avant. It is still a bit of a sled. With a bit of personality like the Falcon.
Photo by the author.
The VW ID.4 and its siblings are known to be difficult to charge. In particular, the scheduled charging features don’t behave as owners expect them to. At this point, it is unclear if there are actual software problems or just user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) problems. These problems are sufficiently bad that the Internet is littered with whiny posts about the issue.
VW seems to have done a good job of anticipating how owners would want to charge their vehicles. They have not done such a good job of making it happen. This seems to be partially a UI/UX design problem in that the user interface is a bit muddled.
It also appears to be a result of clinging to the ICE fill up when the nag comes on model rather than adopting a different fill-up model suited to BEV home charging. We’ll explore this after the break and report once we have some experience.
Leaving to run errands the other day, the ID.4 threw its first power train caution light, malfunction in the electrical drive train. This was only a caution. The car completed self-test and appeared to drive normally. The alarm was locked in until the vehicle was shutdown at my destination.
The fine manual is not terribly helpful. It tells you to have the vehicle serviced. And that you can continue to drive the vehicle.
It drove normally in B mode.
When I arrived at my destination, I shutdown the drive after parking and ran my errand. I came out expecting that a real fault would still be present and that the caution message would reappear. If it was a glitch during power on self-test, the fault would not return.
When I started the vehicle to depart home, I engaged the drive (B mode) while the vehicle was still working its way through self-test. This time, I patiently waited for self-test to complete. No caution message. ID was happy. We call ours Winterkorn.
Winterkorn does not like to be disturbed while he is performing power on self-test. Engaging the drive may have caused a flicker on the high voltage during self-test that caused the caution. So now I’m careful to let Winterkorn wake fully before attempting to make him move.
We named our vehicle after the CEO who set Volkswagon Audi Group on the path to electrification. Without the Diesel emissions scandal to spur action, it is likely that VW would have made a less aggressive transition to battery electric vehicles like Honda, Mazda, and Toyota are. To get well from the extreme embarrassment and harm he caused the company, his replacement announced and the company is executing an aggressive transition to electric vehicles.
Feature image courtesy of Volkswagen Ireland.
Bingo fuel is an aviation term of art for the amount of fuel required for a safe return to base and landing. When an aircraft reaches bingo, the pilot must abandon the mission and return to base (usually the designated bingo destination) to ensure that the crew and aircraft will be available to fly another day.
A similar notion is useful in automobile trip planning and fuel management. In internal combustion vehicles, we never really give bingo fuel any thought. When the little orange light comes on, buy fuel soonest. Unless driving out in the country, we were always within a mile or two of a fill-up. Not so driving a BEV. Continue on to learn how the Dismal Chauffeur manages BEV fuel.
Dismal Manor Gang has used its VW AWD Pro S ID.4 for about 3 weeks. We’re about to start paying down the loan and we’re making an effort to go out on pleasure drives with the dogs as the weather and other activities permit. During this period, we’ve formed some more detailed impressions of the vehicle.
Dismal Manor recently took delivery of an AWD Pro Gradient S ID.4 battery electric vehicle. On D + 2 Days, Dave, Rocky, and Missy went for a ride. Missy and Rocky rode in the expanded wayback as neither wanted to board with the back seat up. Once loaded up, we drove the bay and ocean loop from Little Creek to Dam Neck. Once at Dam Neck, we joined the Virginia Beach roads and took the tricky way home.
It took the new Das Auto about 10 weeks to cross the ocean. There was a wait for a slip to load up, a two week transit, and a wait for a slip to unload in Baltimore. Then more waiting for an auto transporter and haulage to the local marshaling point and delivery to the dealer.
ID.4 image courtesy of myvw.com. Dog images by the author.
Dismal Wizard did it. He’s ordered a 2022 VW ID.4 “crossover utility vehicle” to replace the Mk VII GTI. Several things prompted the decision. This the first in a series of articles. Eventually, I’ll write one on financing and another on first impressions.
I found myself thrown into the new car market a couple of weeks ago. A case of unintended acceleration resulted in the rear ending of my beloved 2001 Audi A4 Avant at a light in Virginia Beach. I was the rear-ended. The rear ender had pulled up to let a vehicle slip in behind while we were waiting for the light. To stop, instead of the brake, the driver stepped on the the throttle. When the car didn’t slow, push harder. Bang. The sad bit was that I was going to a club meeting that didn’t exist.
State Farm took one look at the car and called it a total loss. The hatch frame was badly warped and the way back floor was badly buckled. Beyond economic repair. Other than some brake light alarms, it drove home normally much to my amazement. At this point it was time to go car shopping, something I was hoping to put off while VW and Audi product plans had settled some more. Fortunately, they had settled enough that there were choices.
After several years of watching Top Gear, a year of the magazine, and regular reading of Automobile Magazine and Car and Driver, my short list of dog friendly cars was
State Farm let me have a Fiesta SE as a temporary replacement vehicle. It took 10 minutes to figure out how to tune the radio. That pretty much took Fords off the list. Sync lived up to its reputation. I didn’t try to pair the phone or use the other features.
Meanwhile, the Golf is car of the year, the world over. All trim levels, all drive trains. Let’s start there. I ended there. My first choice was a white four door Golf GTI stick. There were none to be had but one of the first things I did was stick or auto. The stick was the nicest I’d driven with crisp gates, a robust feel, and nice clutch take up. I’d forgotten what a new clutch felt like! The automatic was inoffensive but I really had my heart on a stick. Save the Manuals and all that. I’d driven stick for 40 years and this may be their last hurrah.
But there were none to be had unless I wanted the red two door on the lot. Red, done that. Two doors, done that. Time for change. I’d picked white and 4 doors (done 4). But in my old age, I need to open the door wide to get in and out. The shorter doors of the 4 door make that easier in a narrow carport (got one) or parking spot. So if I wanted white with 4 doors and a stick, it had to come from out of area. Well, who would have thunk white 4 door sticks were in demand. They were. The dealer would find one and the dealer holding it would have a local offer the next day. Two found, two sold at home.
So I bought the DSG automatic from stock. This transmission is not your father’s slush box. That’s ’60’s slang for an automatic of the day. These beasts were 2 or 3 speeds, crude, and coupled to the engine by a torque converter. This is a fluid coupling that allows the engine to turn while the car is stopped with a gear engaged. It also allows the gears to switch by letting the transmission’s input shaft change speed relative to the engine speed when the switch occurs.
The torque converter works by requiring the engine to turn faster than the transmission input shaft to transfer torque from the engine shaft to the transmission shaft. This is called slip. It also makes the car hard to drive by sound and for the car’s motion to be somewhat sluggish relative to the direct connection of engine and transmission by a clutch. I never really liked driving an automatic. A ’56 Pontiac Turbo Hydromatic (3 speeds) may have had something to do with that.
The VW GTI automatic transmission is a dual clutch sequential gearbox (DSG). This design is an evolution of Formula 1 and Rally technology tamed for city driving. The transmission input shaft drives two gear trains directly connected to the output shaft. The input shaft splits to drive two wet plate clutches, one for each path through the transmission. At any point in time, both clutches are disengaged when the vehicle is at rest, or one of the two is engaged to drive the vehicle.
The sequential bit comes in because the gears are engaged in order. The transmission can switch up or down by exactly 1 cog. It does this in a clever way. The idle shaft is preselected to the next gear to be used, one gear up or down from the current gear. Come time to switch, a little robot simultaneously disengages the driven clutch and engages the idle clutch. This process takes 10 milliseconds! And it is seamless. No slip. The engine note changes down and deepens, and the car pulls smoothly.
With the normal maps selected in the GTI (engine throttle map and transmission shift map), shifts are smooth and free of jerks. I knew it was smooth but didn’t realize just how smooth until I put the dogs in the way back to do an errand. I’m not the Stig so my shifting is 500 milliseconds or so and would rock the dogs around pretty good. I could occasionally put one on his or her rump with my heavy footed technique. They stand through DSG switches without noticing them!
The everyday maps are smooth. They get around town right. They get highway entrance right. The car just pulls smoothly switch, switch, switch. The engine torque curve is manage and flat over the power band. Cars with peaky torque curves feel fast. Cars with smooth broad torque curves are fast but don’t feel it. Driving to church, the car pulled up to highway speed without fuss and much quicker than I thought it had.
With a DSG gear box, the car is faster than with a manual box, even with the Stig stirring the manual. He just can’t beat that simple minded robot (or its adaptive control algorithms). And without torque converter slip, it is as efficient as a manual. With the every day shift maps in use, it delivers 28.5 mpg doing the errands across Norfolk and the Beach. The Audi (admittedly heavier) was good for 23.5 over the same weekly orbit.
Early DSG boxes were harsh around town. They were notorious for chatter. They didn’t like parking, neither head in nor parallel parking. VW has tamed the low speed chatter. The little robot running the engine and transmission will disengage and re-engage as needed for smooth motion in slow traffic. As you slow for a light, you hear the transmission shift down as the car slows.
Backing out of the carport, the roll off is a bit eager but easily managed with the brake. Once the car has figured out that you intend to creap, it does that well with a light foot on the brake. If it hangs up on the misaligned bit of drive, light pressure on the throttle takes it up onto the higher slab.
I can’t comment on parallel parking but the car is easily managed entering and leaving head in places. This is no harder than with a torque converter automatic. If fact it seems easier. With a manual, you normally touch the clutch to get rolling, disengage, and manage speed with the brake. The DSG feels like it is doing much the same behind the scene. Engaging to roll off but using the car momentum to complete the low speed move.
Dismal Manor Dispatches 