• Lots of passenger space
• Bigger boot than a Golf
• Plenty of safety equipment

How much space is there?

The Volkswagen ID.3 has a similar footprint to a Golf or a Ford Focus but, because none of that space is occupied by a bulky petrol engine, it has more room inside. This sense of airiness is heightened by the car’s short front and rear overhangs, long wheelbase and a windscreen that’s much closer to the front of the car than in a combustion-engined rival.

Strangely, the ID.3 feels narrower inside than the equivalent Golf, despite the fact it’s (slightly) wider on the outside. The upshot of this is that three large adults will fit across the rear bench. However, if you’re carrying a tall passenger in the middle, they’ll likely grumble on a long journey as the raised middle seat base will push their head into the roof lining.

Nobody will complain about legroom, though. Handily, the ID.3 has a completely flat floor and Volkswagen pushed the car’s seats as far towards the cabin’s corners as possible. That means rear-seat passengers have plenty of foot, knee and legroom. The floor height is a little taller than a conventional hatchback’s, but the raised roofline means there’s still plenty of headspace for those in the outermost seats.

One thing worth noting is that 58kWh models have five seats while long-range 77kWh variants only have four. The bigger battery eats more space in the ID.3’s platform – and Volkswagen was forced to sacrifice the rear middle seat to gain the extra battery capacity. If you want a similar amount of space but don’t want to spend as much, consider a BYD Dolphin.

Boot space and storage

The Volkswagen ID.3’s boot measures 385 litres with the rear seats in place, making it five litres larger than the contemporary Golf. It’s also a deep, square shape, which means it lends itself well to carrying suitcases.

There are some disappointments, though. For starters, there’s nowhere convenient to store the car’s charging cables. Considering the ID.3 is a purpose-built EV, it seems like a huge oversight that Volkswagen didn’t give the car a front boot. The cable can be squeezed under the boot floor to prevent it cluttering up the boot – but if you want to charge up during a long road trip, that means you’ll need to empty the boot of your luggage to access it.

Additionally, the lip of the boot is rather high, which means you need to lift heavy items up and over it. Plus, if you need to carry larger items, you may be disappointed to find that you can only fold the rear seat backrests onto the rear seat bases – so the space on offer is far from flat. In fairness, this isn’t uncommon in hatchbacks of this size, though. However, total load capacity with the seats folded is 1,267 litres, which is again larger than the Golf, this time by 30 litres. A Renault Megane E-Tech has an even larger boot, but it has an even higher loading lip.

Is it easy to park?

The Volkswagen ID.3 is a family hatchback, which means it’s relatively easy to thread it into a space once you’ve learned its dimensions. There are a couple of blind spots, though. Rear three-quarter visibility is a little poor thanks to the thick pillars and your view of the front corners is non-existent because of how steeply the bonnet slopes away from you.

But it has an exceptionally tight turning circle, its mirrors are large and you can specify loads of optional equipment to help you park, including front and rear parking sensors, a rear-view camera and fully automatic parking systems. These extras make parking the car a doddle.

Safety

• Five-star Euro NCAP rating
• Lots of standard safety kit
• Dim-witted lane-keeping assist

Euro NCAP crash-tested the ID.3 in 2020 – and it awarded the car a five-star safety rating. However, it’s worth noting that the safety body tightened up its regulations in 2023, placing extra emphasis on technology such as a child presence detection and active lane keeping systems that can react and respond to motorcyclists and vulnerable road users. That means a rival five-star EV tested in 2023 (such as the BYD Dolphin) could fare better in an accident.

Despite this, the ID.3 should be a benign companion in an accident. It scored 87% in the adult occupant protection category and 89% in the child occupant protection category. The testers were particularly impressed by how well the car shielded its adult occupants’ neck – and it scored full marks for child protection in the frontal and lateral impact tests.

The ID.3 comes packed innovative features including a central airbag, which is intended to prevent the driver and front passenger from colliding with each other in the event of a side impact. You can also specify Volkswagen’s optional Travel Assist system which can assume control of the steering, acceleration and brakes on the motorway, providing you keep your hands on the wheel.

Like many other recent Volkswagen Group products, we did find the ID.3 occasionally asking us to take control of the steering when driving with Travel Assist engaged, even though we were, in fact, holding the wheel. It seems that when you’re travelling in a straight line, the system has been programmed to over-cautious, perhaps to iron out driver complacency.

Watch: Euro NCAP crash test video