VW ID.7 Tourer: The Electric Wagon Defying EV Skeptics

There is an ongoing opinion among EV skeptics according to which electric vehicles only suit people who drive a few miles to and from work daily and do not use EVs for business travels or family trips that require further distances. However, one can make a difference—meet the ID.7 Tourer, a wagon version of the already existing VW ID.7 sedan, which promises all the cargo space and range that a road-tripper might need.

The big news is the introduction of a bigger battery pack. Now let’s focus on it, because while the ID.7 wagon will be only available in Europe, and not in North America, the new battery option will make it to the globally sold ID.7 sedans. 

The base ID.7 comes with a 77 kWh battery mounted on each ID.7 at launch, but spend a little more and unlock the 86 kWh power pack that VW claims to suit the best 426 miles WLTP between charges. VW did not provide any figures for the wagon with the smaller battery, but the up-to-date sedan ID.7 of 77 kWh offers 383 miles.

In order to keep the charging time similar for the two vehicles, the bigger pack is capable of charging at 200 kW, instead of 175 kW. This means a 10-80% charge needs 28 minutes in the more affordable version and a good 30 minutes for the Pro.

Regardless of the chosen variant, it will be equipped with a single 282-hp electric motor driving the rear wheels. We are still waiting for VW to release its powerful bi-motor; we know AWD ID.7 works upon it. 

It is easy for us to think about ID.7 as an electrified counterpart to the new VW Passat, which comes with a range of mild-hybrid, PHEV, and combustion engines. But, besides the price points and power sources, what sets them two apart is ID.7’s availability only as a sedan, while the Passat comes as a Tourer. And now that both are available as wagons - they can be objectively compared.

So which one is more spacious? VW claims that the maximum cargo capacity with the back seats folded down is 60.5 cu-ft, compared with 56 cu-ft for the sedan. Even with the back seats at their place and luggage loaded only on the window’s line, the Tourer owners benefit from 2.5 cu-ft. The 21.4-cu-ft truck is 1.2-cu-ft wider than the BMW i5’s. 

One notably missing feature in the ID.7 Tourer which was promised at the ID. Space Vizzion concept launch in November 2019, is the third row seat. Space Vizzion didn’t in fact have seven seats, but VW promised a possible third row. The in-production Tourer is, however, a two-rowed deal.

At the front, no differences were spotted. We have the familiar small pack of digital instruments and a 15-inch touchscreen mounted above the center of the dash. As for the newly introduced items, we have the ChatGPT AI technology introduction, something VW unveiled at CES in Las Vegas at the beginning of the year.

The sedan is expected to receive the same treatment, which promises an improved IDA vocal assistant and a head-up display that provides navigation instructions from Android Auto and Apple CarPlay.

The electric wagons are a slightly niche proposition; therefore, it is not hard to guess why VW won’t bring the American or European Tourer to the table. VW did not make any prices public, but taking into account the pricing for a sedan we can be sure that the wagon will undercut BMW’s i5 Touring but cost far more than a Peugeot e-308 or MG5.