In February I was given the opportunity to test the all-wheel drive variant of my ID.4 in a winter training. The so -called Winter Driving Experience of Volkswagen with the new ID.4 GTX took place in the “snowy” faistenau near Salzburg. This gave two exciting tests: On the one hand, how well the ID. On the other hand, how does the GTX behave on snow and ice.

Long distance with planning?

I knew that I had to connect the almost 550km per way with a charging stop. Since I still had a business appointment in St.Gallen from Aargau, I knew that I could still load there. So I calculated the outward journey with about 80% charging stand from St.Gallen. The fastest way to Salzburg leads past Munich, I did the planning with ABRP and pump. Depending on which driving speed I planned, one or two stops came out as a result.

Long distance in reality

I have made a book so that there is an impression of how a longer journey with the electric car “feels”. I recorded every load and noted the charging level of ID.4, i.e. the SOC (State of Charge). Since I was able to charge around 2 hours on an AC loader during the first stop on an AC loader, the loading planning was actually obsolete. Nevertheless, I did it as planned and invited it to two charging boys from EnBW in Erkheim and Unterhaching.

Charging status recording of the ID.4 on a long distance

I consciously chose the two charging clubs because I had heard a lot of good things about the EnBW locations beforehand. This has also been confirmed, all equipped with Alpitronic HPCs and made it possible to reload quickly. This was also important that on the highways in Germany you can drive very comfortably with 150km/h. Of course, the consumption increases sharply, so you are happy for good charging power.

EnBW Ladehub in Unterhaching with the ID.4

At the destination, a load was possible overnight in the hotel and for the return trip I planned the stop at Ionity near Landsberg. Since I wanted to gain experience abroad again with the trip, another quick loader was deliberately used. Here, too, all loading points functionally and the charging capacity rose over 100kW immediately. So consistently good experiences. The Salzburg route in the Aargau would be feasible on the highway with this one charging stop at around 120km/h. With a higher speed, a very short charging stop at Gofast in Seuzach had to reload the last kilometers.

Ionity fast loader Landsberg

Payment abroad?

I use the “Move Comfort” subscription and I was almost able to pull this trip through. The EnBW charges accept the Move contract in the roaming. For me it was important to see through a charging card, the price was not decisive. So I haven’t checked on every pillar which loading provider would be cheapest. Move would also work at Ionity too, but the loader went on a bit of authorization. After repeated attempts, the release then worked with other charging cards.

Release the charging station with Move

ID.4 GTX Winter Driving Experience

I took the entire long -distance ride for VW’s “Winter Driving Experience”. However, these have been around for years with burners and in Faistenau near Salzburg there was the opportunity to do this with the fully electric ID.4 GTX with all -wheel drive.

VW Winter Driving Expericence mit dem ID.4 GTX

In driving training there was only a short approach to the different modes in ID.4 and quickly driven in the “traction”. The GTX then runs soft up to 20 km/h with all-wheel drive and the DCC dampers. If you still play something with the ESC, you have the ideal starting point to drive with rich drifts and short acceleration impulses on snow and ice slalom.

The driving pleasure and many drifts were particularly written on various routes and differently stuck courses. I think the following, short video shows exactly what I mean …

Conclusion on the ID.4 GTX

The ID.4 GTX was surprisingly easy to move on snow and ice with more than 2200kg weight. Unfortunately, I have no direct comparison to another vehicle, but I was pleasantly surprised and was able to enjoy driving training.

Conclusion for the long -distance journey

Here I once again made it clear that the human biopause is more common than the loading requirements of the car. At the same time as my return trip, a combustion engine also drove the practically the same route. At around 6 hours of travel time, the difference was around 10 minutes on arrival. I think that says it all …