2024 Chevy Equinox EV vs. VW ID4: Which Is the Best Affordable Electric SUV?

The Chevy Bolt EUV once reigned as the most affordable electric SUV—if you were cool calling a front-drive-only subcompact hatch an SUV. A direct replacement is promised, but until it arrives, the 2024 Chevrolet Equinox EV is the Bolt’s successor, with a promised starting price around $35,000 before federal tax incentives. How does the new Equinox stack up against the other “people’s car” electric SUV, the Volkswagen ID4? To find out, we rounded them both up and headed for the Keene, California, homestead of Mexican-American farmworkers’ rights champion Cesar Chavez.

That $35,000 opening price will buy an Equinox with an 85-kWh battery good for 319 miles of range and a 213-hp, 236-lb-ft motor spinning the front wheels. The VW ID4 opens higher ($41,160) and has less battery, range, and output (62 kWh, 206 miles, 201 hp, 229 lb-ft). But the original Beetle builders locate their lone motor in the rear, which makes it a bit sprightlier to drive.

This roundup examines the top of each range (people’s bosses’ cars?), with both brands adding a less powerful AC induction motor to the second axle. Our Equinox EV AWD RS model, starting at $50,095, gets a stronger 241-hp motor in the front plus a 90-horse rear motor, good for a total of 288 hp and 333 lb-ft. Drawing from the same 85-kWh battery pack, this setup is good for 285 miles of EPA range. The VW ID4 AWD Pro S starts at $55,300 and gets a bunch more power and battery capacity: a 107-hp front and 282-hp rear motor that combine to produce 335 hp and more than 400 lb-ft, with an 82-kWh battery pack extending EPA-estimated range to 263 miles.

The second-generation Mexican-American Chavez fought hard for legal protections against the undocumented immigrants that were sometimes brought in to break his strikes and generally threatened the livelihoods of fellow American-born and migrant farm workers. So he might have been inclined toward the (Chattanooga-built) VW ID4 over the Equinox EV, which is built in Ramos Arizpe, Mexico. But both vehicles meet all Inflation-Reduction Act domestic-content requirements, so they each qualify for Uncle Sam’s $7,500 tax credit.

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Sizing Up These Electric SUVs

Each vehicle sports a fresh and clean if not overly innovative design on the outside. The Volkswagen ID4 is more than 10 inches shorter in length and 4 inches narrower than the Equinox EV, yet it delivers nearly identical passenger space and accommodates 7 cubic feet more cargo space with the seats down (and nearly 4 more with them up). So the VW would have accommodated a bunch more picket signs during the grape strikes and boycotts through which Chavez helped earn farmworkers a congressionally mandated $1/hour minimum wage in 1966.

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Equipment Levels

Inside, the Chevy holds a clear advantage in terms of screen resolution and size (11.0 inches for the cluster and 17.7 inches for the infotainment), plus amenities like a heated steering wheel, heated seats all around with cooling in front, and snazzier seat upholstery. Basically, this looks more like a $50,000 vehicle than the VW does—and the $35,000 Chevy will look quite similar. By comparison, the drab black and gray VW interior’s tiny instrument cluster and 12.7-inch infotainment screen look dramatically downscale.

Our Equinox RS gets Super Cruise hands-free driving as standard equipment, and it’s a $2,700 option on the 2LT. Volkswagen counters with IQ.Drive Travel Assist, which delivers lane centering with lane change assist (signal, and it changes lanes for you). This isn’t hands-free, but it works on all roads. When an Equinox leaves the 750,000 miles of mapped Super Cruise highways, the driver makes do with lane keep assist, ping-ponging off the lane markers.

VW offers standard Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, neither of which is available on the Chevy. What’s more, Chevy’s Google assistant, native navigation, and other apps will eventually require a subscription to function. The ever pragmatic, never ostentatious Chavez may have gravitated to the less showy, more practical vee-dub.

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Electrical Architecture

Relative to its (2024 SUV of the Year–winning) Blazer EV platform-mate, the Equinox’s 85-kWh pack uses ten 28.8-volt battery modules instead of 12. That limits the pack to 288 volts, which in turn drops the charging speed to about 150 kW. By contrast, VW’s 83-kWh pack operates at 350 volts, allowing a faster 190-kW peak charging rate. That means when you drive both packs down to 5 percent and plug in, 30 minutes of charging will add 193 miles of range to the VW but just 127 miles to the Chevy. Our 70-mph MotorTrend Road-Trip Range results were 241 miles for the Equinox, 248 miles for the ID4, so Señor Chavez’s travel time to and from California’s capital in Sacramento, 300 miles away, would have been measurably longer in the Equinox EV.

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But How Do They Drive?

Commuting around town they’re both lovely, although you’ll need bigger parallel parking spaces for the Equinox. On his frequent runs into Tehachapi, up the twisty, hilly Tehachapi-Woodford Road from his compound—Our Lady Queen of Peace (“La Paz” for short)—Cesar would have had way more fun in the ID4. This VW always reminds you it’s related to the GTI. Sure, it weighs 1,700 pounds more than our last GTI test car, but with all the weight down low and the rear-biased torque, the ID4 is considerably more satisfying to hustle on a fun road. We do wish it had a true one-pedal driving function like the Equinox, but the “B” mode comes close.

By contrast, the Equinox constantly reminded of its relationship to the GMC Hummer EV SUV. With most of its power and torque delivered through the wheels tasked with steering, it was heavily inclined to understeer at the limit. A thicker steering wheel rim and greater steering effort in Sport mode all contributed to the impression of additional heft.

Our objective numbers bear out these impressions, with the ID4 leading the Equinox by a half second to 60 mph (5.2 vs. 5.7) and widening its lead to 0.7 second and 6.9 mph by the quarter mile. A 184-pound curb weight advantage carried on more aggressive, staggered-fitment Pirelli tires help the VW stop 18 feet shorter from 60 mph—118 vs. 136 feet—despite its rear drum brakes. It also corners somewhat harder, at 0.79 vs. 0.77 g. String all those results together in our figure-eight test, and the Volkswagen manages a 26.9-second, 0.68-g run as compared with the Chevrolet’s 28.1 seconds at 0.62 g. That’s a difference you can easily feel on a twisty road.

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Which Is the Best Affordable Electric SUV?

After enduring several hunger strikes to advocate nonviolently for his causes, Cesar Chavez died at age 66 in 1993, three years before the EV1’s debut. So there’s no knowing for sure how he’d have reacted to these or any other electric vehicles, although we feel certain he’d share our heightened enthusiasm for the promised $35,000 Equinox EV. We reckon that model would compare quite favorably against a smaller-battery base ID4.

But here in the mid-$50,000 range, the Equinox EV RS’ uncompetitive charging speed, less efficient packaging, lack of Apple CarPlay/Android Auto, and ever-present feeling of exceptional heft dampen our enthusiasm for the Chevy. And although we all still universally hate Volkswagen’s asinine use of two switches to control four power windows and its general overreliance on finicky capacitive switchgear, the tidier, quicker-accelerating, quicker-charging, lither, more practical ID4 struck us as the better all-around buy.

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2nd Place: 2024 Chevrolet Equinox EV AWD RS

Verdict: We’re impressed architecture shared with GMC’s Hummer underpins this affordable compact; we’re not shocked it drives a little heavy.

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1st Place: 2024 Volkswagen ID4 AWD Pro S

Verdict: When the more practical option is also the one that’s better to drive, you have yourself a winner.