The ID.4 GTX Is Volkswagen's Fastest EV And It's Sort Of Coming To America (Updated)
Volkswagen announced the GTX performance version of its ID.4 EV today. The crossover looks promising, with all-wheel-drive by way of dual motors and a combined power output of 299 horsepower, making it the marque's fastest EV to date. There were hopes that the model would come to the U.S., but that's not going to happen, at least not exactly.
Correction 4/29/2021: I have been informed that the AWD ID.4 that the U.S. will be getting is almost mechanically identical to the GTX. The GTX styling is unique and the GTX uses a unique adaptive damping system.
Volkswagen debuted the ID.4 GTX today at Tempelhof Airport in Berlin. During the pandemic, automakers are getting really creative with releases — BMW took to social media, while Honda released its Civic prototype through Twitch — Volkswagen rolled the ID.4 GTX into a hangar and up a ramp.
Since VW couldn't fill a hangar with people, it instead put a giant ramp inside, then made the ID.4 GTX crawl around it.
VW says that the ramp has an incline of 37.5 percent, which proved no problem for the AWD system of the GTX. Viewers of the intro were not as lucky: The ramp also had a video playing on its surface, and between the video, the camera's movements and the car's movements, it's easy to get a little queasy watching it. Oops.
Outside, the ID.4 GTX gets some nice styling upgrades. The black body cladding of the regular ID.4 is now painted to match the rest of the body. The roof rails are now painted black, and in back the GTX sports some pretty cool LED taillights. There are 20-inch wheels as standard and 21-inch wheels as an option.
This theme of small changes continues inside, where the dash comes in a dark blue hue with some red accents and GTX branding.
The GTX appears to be the EV equivalent of a GTI, so I was hoping so see some plaid seats in there. The GTX seats aren't plaid, but they do have some red accents to match the rest of the interior.
The ID.4 GTX uses two motors to form an AWD system. Together, they put out 220kW, or 299 HP. This is good for a zero to 60 sprint in 6.2 seconds and a top speed of about 111 mph. These stats fall behind much faster competition like the Ford Mustang Mach-E and the Tesla Model Y.
The 77 kWh battery gets carried over from the standard ID.4, and range is estimated to be up to 298 miles on the famously optimistic WLTP testing protocol. Starting price comes in at 50,415 euros, or about $60,974.
Sorry to say, Americans won't get the GTX. I reached out to the automaker and it confirms that while we will get an AWD ID.4, we will not get the GTX.