Driving in the Alps in a Volkswagen ID.5 GTX. Like a miracle.

The driving distance is 82km, and the remaining distance to the destination is 79km. If you encounter even an uphill slope, you will be in trouble. This is because if you go uphill by 1km, the driving distance decreases by more than 5km. If the battery runs out in the middle of the trip, you won’t be able to get anywhere. It was not easy to judge because it was a mountain road with repeated ups and downs.

The car departed from Munich, Germany in a Volkswagen ID.5 GTX and was driving past Grossglockner near Salzburg, Austria. Grossglockner is the highest peak in the Austrian Alps at 3,789 meters above sea level. The highest point of the road is 2,500m above sea level, making it the highest region in Austria. If you pass by this place, it means that no matter which direction you go, the road is mostly downhill. These were the best conditions for something miraculous to happen. Fortunately, we had passed the peak.

I moved the car carefully. Of course, I chose eco mode and turned off the air conditioner. When I open the car window, the cool air of the Alps in late summer blows through me. It’s 100 times better than air conditioning. I wish I had opened the window a long time ago…. It’s like regret.

My fingers were busy. While running in D, I chose B on a steep downhill, and when the momentum decreased, I repeated moving to D again. In B mode, the regenerative braking system operates actively to collect a lot of electricity. It is a thin and long method.

The distance to the destination decreases, but the driving distance increases as you drive. Even after driving all 79km, there was still 149km of driving range left. It’s a miracle that’s possible because it’s an electric car.

The ID.5 GTX was a fountain that never ran dry. The longer it ran, the more battery power it had, so it was a moving power plant. This is the power of regenerative braking. Normally, the motor turns the wheel, but when going downhill, the wheel turns the motor. The motor, which rotates with the power of the wheels, generates electricity and stores it in the battery. Although gasoline never accumulates in an empty fuel tank, it is common for electricity to accumulate in an empty battery. It’s like a miracle, but if you think about it, it’s completely natural ‘science’.

Even so, the reason a car with 79 km of remaining driving range can run 149 km even after running 80 km is because the driving distance is calculated based on average fuel efficiency. If you calculate it based on the fuel efficiency that deteriorated while running uphill, you could go 79km further, but since you started running downhill after that, the average fuel efficiency improved significantly, and if you calculated it based on that fuel efficiency, the driving range continued to increase, which was like a miracle.. The average fuel efficiency of running 418 km on the first day at an average speed of 56 km per hour for 7 hours and 32 minutes was 17.6 kWh/100 km, or 5.68 km/kWh.

While visiting Germany to cover the IAA 2023 held in Munich at the invitation of the Volkswagen Group, I test drove the Volkswagen ID.5 GTX for three days. Volkswagen’s electric vehicles are the ID family. They were named ID3, 4, and 5. The ID2 all was introduced as a concept car last spring, and the ID.7 was able to be seen at this IAA. I was hoping to get a chance to ride the ID. Buzz, but unfortunately it didn’t happen.

It was a good name. It is one of the most sophisticated names in the automotive world. With the introduction of electric vehicles, manufacturers and brands struggled to come up with a name that differentiated meanings such as body style and segment, but Volkswagen chose a simple name with just two letters and a number ID. It is the most sophisticated name. This is the result of placing sedans and SUVs so that they do not overlap.

The ID.5 is a coupe style version of the ID.4. Since the ID.4 is an SUV, the ID.5 is a coupe-type SUV. These two use the same powertrain. The name given here, GTX, is a name added to the Grand Tourer GT with an It looks similar to the ID.4, but it looks different. The body style, roofline, and area around the C pillar are different, but if you can see the rear spoiler, it is the ID.5 GTX.

In the Volkswagen ID.family, the 5 was the first to wear the GTX badge. ID.5 GTX is the first pure electric high-performance model and was unveiled as a world premiere in November 2021. ID.5 GTX, a high-performance version of ID.5, was developed based on MEB, Volkswagen’s modular electric vehicle platform.

Looking at the specifications, the maximum output is 299 horsepower, which seems a little insufficient to be called high performance. The maximum speed was also limited to 180 km/h. Even in the German Autobahn speed limit zone, it could not exceed 200 km/h. The acceleration time to 100 km/h is 6.3 seconds, which is a bit fast. Rather than high performance, it can be seen as ‘limited high performance’ using two motors and driving in four-wheel drive. Since performance increases when two motors are used anyway, it would be better to recognize the GTX as a four-wheel drive electric vehicle.

The driving stability provided by four-wheel drive was excellent. Grossglockner, a mountain towering in the middle of Austria’s Hohe Tauern National Park, and the road leading to Kaiser Franz-Josefs Höhe, an observatory overlooking it, is a winding and undulating ‘Highway’. It is famous as ‘Alpine Road’. I went around the road with countless hairpin courses, step by step, as if breaking a seal. With the unusually sunny weather leading up to the weekend, the roads were bustling with cars and motorcycles. It was impressive to see so many cars and bikes moving in an orderly manner. One can be impressed by the overtaking that does not interrupt the flow without excessive acceleration or overtaking.

Passing is on the left, and in a roundabout, the car that entered first has priority. If you know and follow this much, there will be no major problems driving in Europe. Also, keep in mind that even on the Autobahn, unlimited speed sections are designated separately.

It was quiet. If the road conditions are good, the quiet interior can be scary. Occasionally a sizzle came into the room, but for the most part it remained quiet. That quietness is the problem. Even the smallest sound can be heard loudly. You can clearly hear rustling and the sound of a suitcase sliding into the trunk. That’s why it’s quiet and sometimes noisy.

Air resistance coefficient 0.27. It’s at a surprising level. The ability to lower the air resistance coefficient of the SUV’s body to 0.27 is, of course, the power of design. By reducing air resistance, the car was quiet and had good fuel efficiency.

A lithium-ion battery with a capacity of 82kWh can be used up to 77.0kWh. Approximately 5kWh was secured as a safety margin. Based on WLTP, the driving range on a single charge is 480km. If you move to Korea, where certification conditions are very strict, the driving range will be slightly shorter.

Looking at European data, it is said that in the worst case, if driven at minus 10 degrees Celsius while using heating, it can run 295 km on the highway, and if driven without air conditioning at 23 degrees Celsius, it can be driven up to 590 km in city driving. If you pay a little bit of attention and drive economically, you can drive more than 500 km.

However, this is only when the battery is used up to 100%, and the battery cannot be used like that. No driver would be reckless enough to keep driving with 10% remaining. Additionally, for battery safety, it is recommended to charge the battery to 80-90% rather than 100%. If you charge from 10% to 90% of the remaining charge, the actual battery usage range can range from 10 to 90%, that is, about 80% of the total. In the case of this car, it needs to be recharged after traveling about 380 km. It’s enough distance. It supports up to 11kW AC for slow charging and 175kW DC for fast charging. It takes about 30 minutes to fast charge from a driving range of 40km to 320km.

Germany and Austria in September were beautiful. The best weather continued every day while driving 800 km in the ID.5 GTX for three days. It was clear that someone in the group had saved the country in a past life.

The test drive course was also fantastic. The moment I parted ways with the ID.5 GTX after taking in the Autobahn from Munich to the Austrian border, the High Alpine Road that winds around the Grossglockner, and the piercing blue sky. This car, the ID.5 GTX, once again catches the eye as it may not be the entity that will save Volkswagen in its transition period. That’s it for Germany, let’s meet again in Korea.

On Oh Jong-hoon’s steep
mountain trail, I had to frequently select B mode to save battery power. It is not comfortable to operate with the right hand. This is an operation where you reach out your hand, select B, and then return to D. Wouldn’t it be much better if you could select B mode by installing paddles on the steering wheel? It would be better if the high-performance image of GTX also had paddles.

Munich, Germany = Jong-Hoon Oh yes@autodiary.kr