Time-poor parent Elisa swapped her titchy petrol car for an electric SUV â the Volkswagen ID.4 â and enjoyed the comfort and quiet of a car run with no eco-guilt
I drive a Renault Twingo for the school runs, which is among the smallest cars into which you can cram three children and perfect for London parking, so I was full of trepidation about driving an SUV.
Luckily the gadgets of this electric car quickly helped me get over my worries. Parking and reversing were surprisingly easy thanks to the sensors; you can see the distance between your car and those in front and behind, and lines guide the direction to steer. With a dodgy shoulder due to lugging a heavy toddler around, it was a relief not to have to constantly crane my neck to check distances.
The “heads up display” meant the speedometer was helpfully projected on to the windscreen along with the compulsory speed limit, and Google Maps on the screen â when I could locate it (the screen is complicated to manoeuvre, which isn’t ideal when you’re focusing on the road while contending with the chatter of small people) â allowed us to see upcoming traffic and adapt our route. Connecting my mobile phone to the car’s entertainment system with Apple CarPlay enabled us to use Spotify and swiftly play the children’s favourite music on demand.
Our two-mile school run is 10 minutes on a good day, and half an hour in stop-start traffic at worst. I’m used to making these short, polluting journeys as economical as possible, driving smoothly to conserve fuel, so it’s been refreshing to use the brake mode: one-foot driving where the car automatically slows down when you take your foot off the accelerator. It’s easier for driving in stop-start traffic and beyond efficient given that braking recharges the battery.
A petrol car of this size would be a real gas-guzzler so we enjoyed not having to think about fuel cost, our impact on air pollution or petrol running out as we kept an eye on the electric-mileage gauge. Incredibly, the miles didn’t even drop on one of those painfully long four-mile round trips, because of the regenerating battery. The 245-mile capacity of the ID4’s battery more than lasted a week, and charging was clean and convenient while doing the supermarket shop.
For the children, comfort was the draw. With no exhaust tunnel, bespoke EV-architecture cars have flat floors, which meant equal legroom for my eldest child in the middle seat. Downloading the app allowed us to set the heating before we got into the car, and not having to drag children out of the house early on a winter’s morning into a freezing cold car is a definite plus. The ID4 took off beautifully, there was no roll back on hills and we couldn’t feel the many potholes in the area.
All in all, we loved how comfortable, smooth, and easy to charge and drive it was. Size wasn’t an issue. And the serene silence after dropping off the children at school was golden.
Elisa drove a Volkswagen ID.4, starting at £37,410 (volkswagen.co.uk)
