A Volkswagen ID.7 Just Went 584 Miles On A Charge (With Only A Little Cheating)

Volkswagen just ran its ID.7 electric sedan for a total of 584 miles on a single charge, averaging a very impressive 6.8 miles per kilowatt-hour. It achieved that lofty goal (144 miles beyond its WLTP rated range) by putting the car on a closed course and driving it slower than neighborhood speeds. Take VW’s bragging rights with a grain of salt: These weren’t real-world conditions.

Driving The Long Road Low And Slow

Part of Volkswagen’s success in its mileage run came from controlling the car’s surroundings, so it headed to the Nardò Technical Center in Italy, owned by company subsidiary Porsche Engineering. Using the perfectly circular, 7.7-mile ring, the automaker simulated a variety of traffic conditions, averaging about 18 miles per hour – meaning the range test took a whopping 32 hours and 26 minutes. Volkswagen said the ID.7’s average cadence matched typical rush hour speeds in cities like Amsterdam and Hamburg.

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The company said it undertook the test to show the maximum efficiency of its four-door EV, which sounds a bit like a tacit admission that it wasn’t a real-world evaluation. Still, hitting 6.8 miles per kilowatt-hour of its 86-kWh battery is darned impressive, roughly equivalent to 235 miles per gallon of gasoline. Volkswagen says the ID.7’s impressive aerodynamic performance – certain versions boast a 0.23 coefficient of drag – helped it in the mission, because the test car was fresh off the production line and completely unmodified.

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It’s Not Volkswagen’s First EV Test

The Volkswagen ID.7’s long-legged achievements join those of other automakers. Mercedes-Benz, for example, used its Vision EQXX concept car to travel 747 miles on public roads in real-world conditions, including elevation changes, temperature swings, and traffic. Meanwhile, students from the Technical University of Munich coaxed a staggering 1,599 miles out of a 15.5-kWh battery in an experimental EV called “muc022.” Neither the EQXX nor the muc022 have to comply with production constraints in the same way that the ID.7 does, so the two stunts can’t really be compared.

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To its credit, VW took the ID.7 nearly 500 miles on a single charge in a test around the Swiss countryside, a slightly better real-world test than Nardò. That said, we’d love to see what the Volkswagen sedan does when it arrives in the US later this year. The company is targeting an EPA range rating of 300 miles, and the ID.7 will recharge at a rate of up to 200 kilowatts using a DC fast charger – better in both metrics than the ID.4 crossover. It be Volkswagen’s flagship and a surprising commitment to what’s commonly considered to be a dying breed – the four-door sedan.