Renault Scenic vs VW ID.5

The Renault Scenic is £0 cheaper to buy. The VW ID.5 is cheaper to charge, roughly £152 a year versus £184 for the Renault Scenic, at 8,000 miles on an off-peak home tariff. Add 5 years of charging and the two land within £160 of each other - effectively the same to own. These figures cover list price and home charging only - insurance, servicing, tyres and depreciation will move the real total.

EVcarsguide estimates a real-world motorway range of about 274 miles for the Renault Scenic and 293 miles for the VW ID.5 - both below their WLTP figures, because sustained high speed is the hardest case for an EV. The VW ID.5 goes roughly 19 miles further between charging stops. A rapid charge to 80% takes around 37 minutes in the Renault Scenic and 29 in the VW ID.5, so the VW ID.5 loses less time at each stop. That makes the VW ID.5 the stronger long-distance car.

The two are within 12 mm on width, so neither is meaningfully easier to thread into a tight space. In a standard 2,400 mm bay that leaves about 548 mm of total clearance for the VW ID.5 and about 536 mm of total clearance for the Renault Scenic. The VW ID.5 also turns in a 0.7 m tighter circle, which helps with U-turns and multi-storey ramps.

Over a 8-year ownership window EVcarsguide's degradation model projects roughly 84% battery health for the Renault Scenic and 84% for the VW ID.5. That is close enough that capacity loss should not decide between them. Both use NMC-type cells, so for daily use keep the charge limit near 80% to slow degradation. Both batteries carry a 8-year manufacturer warranty.