2021 Volkswagen ID.4 Transmission Problems

Owner reports

Selected complaints filed with NHTSA by 2021 Volkswagen ID.4 owners, lightly cleaned up (personal details are redacted by NHTSA).

The car completely stopped without warning. The dashboard lit up with all the lights and informed me that the I need to pull over. There was no time to pull over as the car completely lost all power. The car was traveling on the freeway. It would not start back up and I needed to call 911 for help. The tow truck could not get the car started and the CHP needed to run a traffic break to get it towed off the road. The dealer could only find an NV-energy management alarm triggered and said it was ok to drive again. The next day driving on [redacted], when returning to my car the car said the vehicle electrical system had an error and I could not power it on. I requested a tow and the car is currently at the service department. Of note is when the car was pulled off the freeway I was able to start it and drive it home like nothing happened. …

The vehicle developed a charging/electrical/high-voltage battery problem. Level 3 charging stopped first, then charging later stopped on all levels. The vehicle was taken to an authorized Volkswagen dealer on 08/06/2026. The dealer referenced high-voltage battery/module and charging-system issues, including fault/code information involving P0BBD00 / J840 / 008C and campaign/action history involving 93P7 / 97ZZ. The dealer quoted a very expensive repair involving a high-voltage battery/module condition and charging-system components. The unresolved safety concern is that the dealer/manufacturer have not provided a clear written answer on whether the vehicle can be safely charged, operated, towed, released, or repaired elsewhere while the high-voltage battery/module condition remains unresolved. …

Incident Summary VW ID.4 Loss of Power/Stall Date: Monday, September 7, 2026 Location: Highway (3-lane), traveling ~45 mph Vehicle: Volkswagen ID.4 Sequence of events: While driving at approximately 45 mph, multiple warning messages appeared in rapid succession: ESC Error "Electrical system not working correctly" "Front Assist is not available" Error Rear Traffic Alert Error "12V power supply. Safely park the vehicle! See owner's manual." The vehicle lost accelerator power and came to a stall on the highway. Driver performed a reset/restart of the vehicle. Vehicle moved approximately 100 meters before stalling again, with the same set of error codes reappearing. …

High voltage battery modules fail often and continuously. I am on my third battery module replacement of the year taking up to two weeks for repair. There is also a lighting failure when the weather is hot. All lighting system fail and dont turn on until car is driven for a while and the system cools down. This happens often as I am located in florida. During the summer its almost every day. Dealer hasnt been able to fix. All they have said was that VW told them that is due to the UV of the sun. Nothing they can do. I have never had a car fail its whole lighting system when its hot outside. This is extremly important as front lights wont display turn signals while the system is in this state. Only when the system cools down does the turning signals work again. Dealer has confirmed this but never given me a resolution. …

When accelerating from stop the vehicle loses power. If the accelerator is depressed further the power does not return. However, when the accelerator is released then depressed again power returns. In our case this has happened seven (7) times. The occurrence is random and is not limited to a specific location. It has occurred on the interstate highway when approaching the traffic on an onramp as well as in town driving. On two (20 of the seven (7) occasions automobiles following have had to emergency brake to prevent a rear end collision. Losing power when merging into traffic on an interstate could pose significant safety hazards to oncoming traffic as well as the vehicle merging. The problem has been brought to the dealer's attention but they have not been able to reproduce it. It has not been inspected by police or insurance because accidents have been avoided. …

The car displays warnings such as "travel assist unavailable," "electrical system not working properly," "drive system error" and "please service vehicle. The warnings appear upon startup after entering the car, or when attempting to shift from park to drive, park to reverse, or reverse to drive. The warnings leave the car in "park" and it cannot be moved. When they appear, the driver must exit the car and leave it stationary in the parking lot or busy street where the errors occurred for up to 30 minutes before the car's electrical and drive systems will reset. After reset, the car may or may not have recovered and become drivable, requiring at times multiple attempts before car can be moved. Having to leave the car in a parking lot is a nuisance. Having to leave the car in the middle of a street is hazardous.

The 12v battery powering the electrical system failed. This caused the vehicle to stop unexpectedly in the middle of a busy street worth traffic on either side of the vehicle. All attempts to restart the vehicle resulted in an error stating the electrical system has failed. The problem was reproduced at the dealership. The techs were unable to diagnose the errors. The manufacturer is sending a District Representative to investigate. The vehicle component was recalled in 2023 and replaced by the dealer to address this specific issue and risk. There were zero warning lights prior to the vehicle stalling. Once stalled, the vehicle was able to start, but unable to drive, and all dashboard warning lights activated.

Driving on the highway and with no warning got an "error" message and a message that the electrical system was shutting down. Also popped up some reference about the 12 volt battery. Car went into a neutral type mode and started to slow due to complete loss of power. Luckily we were able to get to the emergency lane from the middle highway lane and coast to a stop. Extremely dangerous for a complete loss of power to occur with no warning. Car turned itself off while we were calling VW roadside assistance. It then was able to be turned back on and driven as normal. Based on VW id4 blogs, this is happening too often and dealerships are not able to determine it through diagnostics.

Car displayed error while driving and immediately began to lose speed. Stopped in the middle of a 6 lane road with a posted speed limit of 35mph. Car would not go into drive. Turned car off and attempted to restart and put it back into drive, but did not work. Turned car off and waited 1 minute and tried again, turned car off a second time and waited 3 minutes. Car restarted with errors but was able to be put into drive and driven. The car was blocking a driving lane in the road for approximately five minutes with hazard lights on. If this has happened on a highway it would have been extremely dangerous.

The ID.4 (brand new - 5 days old) shutdown in the middle of a busy street in Altamonte Springs, FL (suburb of Orlando). There was a "Electrical system not working correctly. Please service vehicle" warning so I began to pull off to the left turning lane. Then 12V battery errors started flashing and 5 seconds later the entire car shut down in the middle of the road. I was unable to restart it for 10-15minutes. I was able to drive 300 feet to a parking lot after. Will be taking the ID.4 to the dealership tomorrow morning (9/20/2021) assuming it doesn't shut down during the drive.

Related recalls

Transmission complaints in other ID.4 years