Well-rounded electric family hatchback receives minor tweaks to boost its appeal On sale Now Price from £37,115
Dan Jones dan.jones@haymarket.com
CHARGED WITH THE task of becoming as familiar and well regarded in the small electric car sphere as the Volkswagen Golf is in the family car world, the ID 3 doesn’t have things easy. The brand’s first bespoke electric car has made a good start, though, scoring higher in our reviews than its larger, newer and pricier ID 4 and ID 5 SUV stablemates.
And now, a minor update aims to rectify a few notable weak areas relating to interior quality and infotainment. Has it worked? Well, kind of.
The tweaked ID 3 makes more liberal use of soft-touch materials; they’re found atop the dashboard, on the door panels and pretty much everywhere within your immediate eyeline. The thing is, you’ll quickly notice the same old scratchy plastics in less prominent places, such as low down on the centre console that runs between the front seats. It’s disappointing when you consider that the entry-level ID 3 costs BMW 3 Series money.
The infotainment system has been updated, with new software making it slightly quicker to respond and easier to navigate, but it’s still buggy, occasionally freezing or crashing. A fix for our biggest gripe with the system, though, won’t arrive until next year; only then will the touch-sensitive sliders that control interior temperature and media volume finally light up so you can find them in the dark. A larger, 12.9in touchscreen is set to arrive at the same time, replacing the current 10.0in screen.
With the exception of some subtle exterior tweaks, pretty much everything else remains the same as with the previous car, and that’s no bad thing.
There are two versions to choose from – Pro and Pro S – and which will suit you better largely comes down to how far you need to drive between charging sessions. With its 58kWh battery, the Pro can officially manage up to 265 miles between charges – farther than the Nissan Leaf but behind the Renault Megane E-Tech’s 280 miles – while the 77kWh Pro S increases the range to 347 miles.
The ID 3’s charging speeds depend on the battery; the Pro accepts a maximum rate of 120kW and the Pro S tops out at 170kW. For context, the Megane E-Tech can handle 130kW and the MG 4 EV Long Range takes 135kW.
The faster charging rate of the Pro S means it takes a similar time (around 30 minutes) to complete a 10-80% top-up (using a
