In this article, I’m going to discuss everything you need to know about the Volkswagen ID.4’s interior including features, comfort level, and how well my personal ID.4 has held up after five years of daily use.
Please note that throughout the article I will be showing pictures of my 2021 ID.4 First Edition’s interior, along with images I’ve taken of the latest models. Outside of some small changes and new color choices, the interiors are overwhelmingly the same.
VW ID.4 Interior Cabin Space & Comfort
The ID.4 offers a relatively spacious two-row cabin that we’ve been able to accommodate passengers up to 6’ 3” (190.5cm) sitting in both the front and rear without any problems or complaints whatsoever.
Despite its short length, the ID.4 has an airy cabin.
Officially, the ID.4 offers 99.9 cubic feet of passenger space in the cabin, including front headroom of 40.6” and rear headroom of 37.9” and legroom of 41.1” and 37.6”, respectively.
Instrument Panel & Center Console
The instrument panel is relatively simple and out of the way which creates excellent visibility and legroom for the front passengers. The steering wheel is manually adjustable, optionally heated (S trims and above) with the driver’s display gauge attached, so you don’t have to worry about blocking your view of the speedometer.
The ID.4’s instrument panel also allows for extra legroom.
A 12” infotainment screen is standard (with a 12.9″ option on 2024 models) and is slightly tilted towards the driver. This can make access for the passenger a bit difficult, especially when the vehicle is in motion.
My First Edition’s 12″ infotainment screen is large and vibrant.
The center console includes storage under the padded armrest (or a sliding storage cover with fully adjustable cup holders in the 2021–2022 model years). There’s a wireless phone charger and additional cupholder space with a plastic piece that can be removed for more storage.
The center console in the ID.4 which was redesigned for the 2023 model year.
Two USB-C ports are provided for charging your devices. There’s also a small space below it which can be used to store a small bag or purse.
Front Seats
For the 2021–2022 model years, the front cabin of the vehicle is made up of two captain style chairs with individual adjustable armrests. The 2023-2024 model year ID.4s include a large center armrest instead.
While I like the idea of not sharing space, I find the captain-style chairs in my 2021 ID.4 to be a bit too narrow and would prefer the new design.
The brown and gray cloth front seats in a 2024 ID.4.
The ID.4 base trims offer 6-way manually adjustable cloth seats that are heated. The optional vegan leather (leatherette) front seats in my ID.4 are extremely comfortable, not overly padded, and provide a good amount of support for longer road trips.
When we rent other cars and get back into the ID.4, we notice the difference, and I think front seating comfort is an underrated feature of this EV.
The leatherette material is a nice upgrade over the cloth and is very breathable.
Though no ID.4 trim offers ventilated seats, they are perforated which does help with breathability. In the S trims and above, there’s 12-way electronically controlled seat adjustments for both driver and passenger along with lumbar support and massaging functions (more on that later).
Volkswagen prioritized front row legroom by pushing the car’s electronics and other equipment into the hood area. While this means no frunk storage space, front passengers have a much larger footwell to stretch out into.
The first row is an inviting place to be.
The soft headrests can be adjusted vertically, too. All in all, the ID.4’s first row cabin space is very competitive, especially given the vehicle’s overall short footprint compared to Mustang Mach-E and Tesla Model Y.
Second Row
The second row can carry up to three passengers, but realistically two adults or three smaller children comfortably. The back seats aren’t anything special per se, but they do the job.
Thanks to the flat floorboard, legroom is excellent. Keep in mind that like most EVs, the battery pack lowers the distance between the floor and the bottom of the seat cushions, so taller passengers will have a bit less thigh support.
The back row features two sets of anchor points for car seats.
The back left and right seats are only offered as a heated option in the Pro S Plus trim. There is a foldable armrest and basic cupholders that rear passengers can use, along with two USB-C charging ports just below the manually controlled air vents. Headrests are adjustable in the back as well.
Interior Color Options, Materials Quality & Durability
The ID.4 offers several color options, along with two different material types for seating surfaces. Let’s discuss these choices and how this material is holding up in my First Edition ID.4’s cabin after five years.
Standard Seat Material & Color Options
The standard basic cloth seating material (with leatherette bolsters) is available in gray and black or gray and brown. Keep in mind that the color you choose changes the accents in the entire car including the dashboard and door panel trim colors.
The interior of a 2024 VW ID.4 Pro with the brown and gray cloth option.
- The gray and brown option features a dark brown dashboard with a gray accent trim piece that extends from the infotainment screen to the door, including light brown door handle accents.
- If you go with the gray and black interior, the dashboard is black with gray accents.
- Both feature a gloss black door grab handle, which is very easy to scratch.
The biggest difference between the cloth and leatherette seats is breathability. Cloth seats are going to feel a bit warmer to sit in.
The perforation of the leatherette seats makes the biggest difference.
You also have to consider difficulty with maintaining the seats. Cloth seats are more prone to absorbing spilled liquid, sweat, sunscreen, you name it. For that reason alone, I’d recommend moving up to the full leatherette if it’s in your budget.
Optional Leatherette Seats
If you do decide to move up to the S, Pro S, or Pro S Plus trims, you’ll instead get the option for two different colors of leatherette seating material.
- One version is black and gray, which offers various shades of both colors throughout the cabin, including black seats, a black dashboard with a gray accent trim piece.
This is a picture of a 2023 black and gray leatherette ID.4. The 2024 models look similar.
- The other option, gray and blue leatherette, changes the black seats and steering wheel into a very light gray (the same as my ID.4), along with adding a blue dashboard, blue door panel trim, and other light gray accent pieces.
My 2021 First Edition ID.4 is basically a combination of both trim options, with mostly light gray accents, seating, and steering wheel.
My First Edition’s interior features the seats and door grab handles from the light gray 2024 models, but a black dashboard similar to the new offering.
Material Quality
The Volkswagen ID.4 is one of the most affordable crossover EVs on the market and one of two made in the United States. This comes with a tradeoff, which is that Volkswagen needed to reduce production and material costs.
You can find quite a bit of hard plastic in the ID.4, including the entire upper and lower instrument panel, the center console, and on the door panels.
Even with the leatherette trim, The ID.4’s doors use a mix of hard plastics (2023 model shown).
The good news is, outside of the door handles, you aren’t really going to be touching these areas a whole lot. Don’t worry, soft-touch injection molded plastic is also incorporated into the cabin.
For example, the upper door panel is injection molded plastic and soft to the touch, along with the elbow rest. The primary dashboard is also injection molded with some faux stitching on newer models.
Many parts of the ID.4’s interior are made of soft touch plastic, like much of the dashboard.
The steering wheel, even if you get the light gray like I have, is soft but not plushy, has stitching, and feels nice to the touch.
In my opinion, the tradeoff VW made with when and where to use cheaper, hard plastics was well worth it and done in an elegant way to not make it feel like you are driving a vehicle with a $20,000 interior.
How Durable Are the ID.4 Interior Materials?
The ID.4 has a relatively handsome cabin, but how well do these plastics hold up with daily use?
Seats
Over time, vinyl seats may start to wrinkle, stain, or otherwise degrade. Very little of this has happened in my ID.4. It almost looks like no one has ever sat in them. This is after five summers of sunscreen, hair products, and Home Depot runs.
My significant other wears blue jeans quite often and we’ve also had zero dye transfer from that.
Even after 80k miles of use, the front seats are showing no visible signs of wear.
There have been cases with some other EVs seeing their vinyl material being eaten away by some of the chemicals I mentioned above. In fact, you often must do daily cleanings or avoid certain products altogether.
I don’t know exactly what it is about the ID.4 that makes it different, but I assume a higher quality plastic choice (oxymoron, I know).
Steering Wheel
After five years of regular use, the white leather steering wheel in my ID.4 is starting to show its age. There’s discoloration, marks, and minor peeling going on. But, that’s partly my fault as I didn’t clean the leather appropriately most of the time and often used Clorox wipes in a pinch. I wouldn’t recommend it.
Door Panels
The door panels, with their variety of mixed materials, including a hard plastic grab handle that’s light gray on my vehicle, are another possible area of damage over time.
In this case, there are some minor signs of wear, in particular where I rest my elbow when driving. This might be completely removable with some special cleaners, though.
There is some wear on the door panel from where I rest my elbow while driving.
On the other hand, the light gray door grab handles look nearly flawless without any notable damage or discoloration. I suspect if you get the gloss black version that won’t be the case, as this is much easier to scratch.
Center Console
The center console, except on 2024 model year ID.4s, is surrounded by a gloss black plastic trim. This material is easy to damage and when fully cleaned, you can see scratching all over the surface. I’m not a fan.
Gloss black scratches easily. While my ID.4’s center console trim isn’t too damaged, it does have some marks.
Is the ID.4 Interior Hard to Keep Clean?
Not at all. But with a combination of kids, pets, cloth seats, and gloss black components can make it a bit more challenging.
Again, I’d strongly suggest going with leatherette. It’s tougher than you think, and anything that you get on it can easily be vacuumed or wiped up.
Even with light colored trim pieces, seats, and steering wheel, the ID.4 isn’t hard to maintain.
If you get the cloth seats or want extra protection for your leatherette material, you can buy a ceramic interior coating that can be applied to help repel stains over time.
How to Clean the ID.4’s Interior
Cleaning the ID.4’s interior is pretty easy. All you need are unscented baby wipes (you can get them in bulk from Amazon), LCD cleaner, and a microfiber glass cleaning cloth for the infotainment screen.
I try to clean the interior about once every two weeks or so.
Unscented baby wipes are gentle and don’t harm the ID.4’s interior materials.
Never use harsh chemicals like Windex or magic erasers, as they can eat away the material. I have used the occasional Clorox wipe here and there, but it’s also not recommended.
Cabin Noise, Squeaks & Rattles
Since EVs lack a roaring (annoying?) engine that drowns away some of the sounds you may otherwise hear like rattling, tire or wind noise, it’s much easier to hear these issues.
Without engine noise, other sounds are easier to hear.
I’d like to start by saying that my ID.4 to date, has not developed any kind of squeaks or rattles to speak of. This makes driving the car much more enjoyable.
Unlike some of its competitors, the ID.4 does not offer dual-pane windows. Despite this, I find the cabin to still be more quiet than economy gas-powered vehicles.
Dual-pane windows are being used by some competitors to help with wind noise.
Volkswagen ID.4’s Best Interior Features
The VW ID.4 has quite a few interior features that make it competitive in the crossover EV market. Some of these you won’t find on any other electric car in this category. Here are some of the primary features I’d like to call out.
Driver’s Display Gauge
Many car shoppers don’t like Tesla’s single-screen implementation in the Model 3, Model Y, and Cybertruck. If that’s a concern for you, don’t worry, the ID.4 comes with the Volkswagen ID.Cockpit digital display.
Unlike the Model Y, the ID.4 comes with a driver’s display gauge.
Infotainment Screen
The standard 12” infotainment found in the ID.4 is likely to blow away any gas-powered vehicle that you may be cross-shopping it with.
The 12″ infotainment screen as equipped in a 2024 VW ID.4.
The screen is very bright and offers some level of customizations, albeit, nothing too fancy. The ID.4 does offer wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay functionality, and voice controls.
Glass Roof & Automatic Shade
Available on the S, Pro S, and Pro S Plus trims is a fixed panoramic glass roof. As of writing, no other EV competitor at this price point includes an electrically operated shade that can be stopped in any position or fully covers the glass on those very hot summer days.
Closing the shade can keep your seats from getting too warm, especially if you opt for the black leatherette.
The glass roof’s electrically-controlled sunshade is the ID.4’s most underrated feature.
Climate Control with Closable Vents
A rare feature these days are physical vents controls for the HVAC system. The ID.4 even allows you to completely close a vent if you or your passengers don’t want air blowing directly on them. Tri-zone climate controls are available on the Pro S Plus trim (and my First Edition).
If you want physical vent controls, you have them on the ID.4.
Massaging Seats
It’s a German luxury car thing, but the ID.4 offers massaging seats for both the driver and front passenger seats if you buy a trim with leatherette seating (S and above). These can certainly come in handy on a long road trip or if you just need a little release from stress.
Ambient Lighting
All trims of the VW ID.4 get ambient lighting which accents the lower instrument panel, footwells, and door grab handle areas. You can choose from a full spectrum of colors, including a primary and secondary color combination.
To me, the ambient lighting helps bring that extra level of futurism while you are driving at night.
Some don’t care for it, but I think ambient lighting adds a nice touch to a car interior.
Auto-dimming Rearview Mirror
Standard on all trims, the auto-dimming rearview mirror is a feature that I haven’t had in a previous vehicle, but one I’ll look for in every car purchase moving forward. It works very well and really reduces distractions from the headlights behind you.
ID.4 Interior Cons
While I believe the ID.4 is a great electric crossover with lots to like, it’s not perfect, and there are some things that I hope Volkswagen changes in the future for a better ownership experience.
Touch Sensitive Buttons
Some say that they hate touchscreen buttons because they can’t physically feel them. Others will argue physical buttons are a thing of the past and remove the ability to be changed with software updates. I think that the worst option is to combine both.
Let’s start with the infotainment screen’s “physical” controls. There are two sets, one at the base of the screen which contains sliders for the climate control temperature and audio level.
The infotainment controls can be unresponsive or laggy at times.
I find these sliders to be very unresponsive and have almost never used them because of it. Below this is a set of primary menu buttons, such as the parking camera menu, climate control, and hazard lights. There’s no physical separator between the touch fields so you can’t tell which one you are selecting without looking down at them.
Moving to the steering wheel, it’s a similar story. Though VW has at least provided grooves around the buttons, inadvertently activating one happens constantly. To make it worse, some of the buttons have both a push and slide operation and it can be frustrating to complete the correct action.
Even with grooves to help, the steering wheel controls can be a tad annoying. Impossible to clean, too.
Finally, moving to the door, the lock, window, and side view mirror controls are mostly all touch sensitive, too. Again, accidentally touching the wrong one is more frequent than selecting the right one. Speaking of which…
Window Controls
To use the rear windows, you must activate the “rear” button and then use the two switches to roll them up or down.
Of course, because this button is touch sensitive, the chances of accidentally sliding your hand or finger across it and then rolling down the rear windows instead of the front is very high. It happens all the time.
These are the most bizarre window switch controls design I’ve seen.
No Premium Audio
Other competitors in this segment offer quality sound system options with a dozen plus speakers.
Unfortunately, VW does not provide buyers the ability to upgrade the ID.4’s 7-speaker sound system at all. Though the included hardware is pretty typical of a basic car setup, and it does the job, you won’t be impressed with its performance.
The speaker system is just mediocre.
Use of Gloss Black Plastic
Gloss black plastic trim pieces look great in PR photos. In practice, they are terrible for three reasons. They are always dirty and instantly become so as soon as you get done cleaning them. Next, they reflect the sun, often into your face. Finally, they scratch easily.
I don’t see any benefits to using gloss black plastics.
My First Edition ID.4 only has gloss black plastic around the infotainment system (which reflects the sun into my eyes), and the center console area. For those of you who opt for the black leatherette with the gloss black door grab handles, please accept my pity.
ID.4 Cargo Space
The VW ID.4 offers 30.3 cubic feet in the rear cargo area with the second-row seats folded up or a total of 64.2 cubic feet with the rear two seats down. The rear seats offer a 60/40 folding split as well.
The vehicle comes with a traditional privacy shelf, which can both help hide your belongings and keep sounds from traveling into the cabin.
With the back seats folded down, the ID.4 can carry quite a bit, including large pieces of lumber.
In my opinion, the ID.4 offers plenty of room for a small family and can carry most of what I’ve needed for home projects and road trips. While it’s not market leading, “good enough for many” is how I would describe it.
If you are looking for a crossover to be able to carry a bit more than a sedan, it’ll do the job perfectly.
Overall Thoughts
The Volkswagen ID.4 isn’t a luxury car and the interior is a reflection of that. But, when you consider that you can get a well-equipped EV crossover for around $45,000, it’s difficult to beat.
In my opinion, when you combine the cost, features, and durability of the materials, this is a great vehicle that will meet the needs of many. I highly recommend you give it a test drive to find out for yourself.
Sources
Related Articles
