Maserati Ghibli vs Volkswagen ID.5

What's the difference?

The Maserati Trofeo Ghibli is a very strange beast, but there's no doubt that it is a beast. Fast, loud and capable on a race track, and yet still closely resembling a classy, expensive Italian family sedan, it is genuinely unique. And genuinely strange, in a good way.

At long last, the ID.5 GTX arrives to make a different pitch than many of its electric rivals. Less about straight-line speed and more about refinement and handling, this EV mid-sizer makes a case for itself, even if it’s not as good value as its ID.4 sibling.

Note: CarsGuide attended this event as a guest of the manufacturer, with travel, accommodation and meals provided.

The Ghibli Trofeo is an alluringly beautiful car from just about every angle, with a genuine sense of occasion and presence about its nose, a sleek side profile and a much improved rear end, where the light clusters have been redesigned.

The Trofeo special touches are impossible to miss, particularly from the driver’s seat where you look straight into two vast nostrils on the bonnet. There are also carbon fibre pieces on the front air duct and the rear extractor for a sportier, wilder look.

The red details on the air vents on each side are the highlight, though, while the lightning bolt on the Maserati trident badge is another nice touch.

The interior is simply beyond special and feels even more expensive than it is. Overall, I’d say it again, it’’s alluring. Italian style at its best and the Ghibli is the Cinderella point in the range, because the Quattroporte big brother really is too large, and the Levante is an SUV.

The key differentiator between the ID.4 and ID.5 is of course the ID.5’s descending coupe roofline. I think it grants the GTX more presence on the road, and I appreciate the touch of having a true three-dimensional spoiler piece atop the boot lid to round it out rather than a more common lip or roof-mounted extension.

Outside of this, the ID.5 sets itself apart from the rest of the Volkswagen range thanks to its curves rather than hard edges as well as contemporary light bar fittings, front and rear.

The overall visage is fresh but a tad conservative, especially compared to the more radical designs we’re seeing on new-to-the-market automakers like XPeng, or those looking to make a splash with their electric offerings, like Kia with its EV5.

There’s certainly something to be said for a more moderate approach, though, as it feels more resolved than many rivals.

Inside, to a degree, the ID.5 follows similar trends in the market, with a minimalist and screen-dominated dashboard.

The 12.9-inch central touchscreen unit is less overbearing than some 15+ inch units in other cars, and this combines with the sensible 5.3-inch digital instrument cluster to make it feel more like a car than a tech product on wheels.

Still, the minimalist theme prevails, with the ID.5’s interior being free of a space-consuming raised console or a smattering of buttons to interact with.

The seats in this GTX are particularly cool, with the single-piece backing like a Golf GTI, red stitching and nice material quality. 

It leaves you with the impression the ID.5 is modern but with the build quality and know-how of a storied automaker, which is a nice balance.

From the driver’s seat, the Trofeo Ghibli feels spacious indeed, and while it’s not as vast in the back as a Quattroporte, there’s plenty of room for two adults, or even three small children.

The move to throw sportiness at the Ghibli has led to it having firm but fabulous seats. They’re comfortable, and the leather is luscious, but the actual seat back is constantly letting your spine know that this is no ordinary Ghibli. 

Throw it around a track, though, and the seats feel just right, providing the kind of support you need.

Boot space is ample at 500 litres and the Ghibli feels like the sort of car you could take your family in, if only it didn’t make you feel like you were spoiling your children too much.

First, the less-good. The minimalist and button-free interior will be a major downside for many. Pretty much everything in the ID.5’s cabin is touch-based. There’s not even a stop/start button, you just sit in the car and it’s ready to go. Additionally, it relies on the now-maligned touch sliders below the multimedia screen for volume and temperature adjustment. Never fun to use on the move. Even the buttons on the steering wheel are the touch-based haptic-feedback kind.

At least the software shapes up. It’s easy enough to navigate, and has a slew of straightforward menus. It’s also backed by enough processing power, with swift responsiveness, and the panel quality is good too, with a sharp, high-resolution finish.

This can be a double-edged sword, though. The high-resolution leads to small shortcut icons across the top of the main screen. While I’m glad the ID.5 has these so you can swap between things like the car’s settings menu and, say, Apple CarPlay easily, it takes some accuracy to jab at while you’re trying to drive.

From there, though, the cabin is clever. Free from the trappings of buttons and a raised console, it feels spacious in every dimension and the seat comfort is excellent with lovely side bolstering and padding.

The seats feel quality, but I wonder whether the synthetic suede-style microfleece trim will age as well or be as easy to clean as cloth or leather. Worth thinking about if you plan to keep this car for a long time.

I even like the touch of having little flip-down armrests which almost makes it feel like you’re being silently propelled along in an armchair in the front seats.

You need these because there’s no traditional raised console with an armrest box. Instead there’s a flexible floating central console piece. It features a modular sort of design, where you can make use of either dividers or a drop-in bottle holder piece in either the upper or lower sections, depending on your preference. Remove these things entirely to have two massive trays.

Meanwhile, the lower section features a cubby with a wireless phone charger, and it also houses the dual USB-C ports with a sliding cover so you can keep the interior tidy. I like it.

There are large bottle holders in the doors, too, and another nice touch is the digital dash being perched on the steering column, so no matter how you adjust it, you can always see it.

The back seat is also excellent in the ID.4 and ID.5, featuring plenty of space for me behind my own driving position, at 182cm tall. There’s heaps of airspace for my knees, and because there’s a flat floor courtesy of this car’s dedicated 'MEB' platform, there’s plenty of space for your feet. It also makes the centre position usable by an adult, which is rare.

Soft trims continue in the doors, but my favourite feature of the ID.5’s rear bench is how the brand has thought to strongly contour the outer two seat backings so even they have plenty of side bolstering.

The backs of the front seats feature an upper pocket for phones and the like, and a larger lower pocket, while the doors feature a large bottle holder each. A drop-down armrest has three shaped cavities for bottles of all sizes, and behind it is a ski port door.

There are adjustable air vents and a touch panel to control the rear climate zone, but because of the low design of the central console, they’re basically on the floor. Nice to have them, but they might be hard to adjust for kids or the less mobile.

This will surprise you. The boot is bigger in the ID.5 than in the ID.4 despite this car’s descending roofline. Measuring 549 litres, it’s also good for the mid-size segment and features an under-floor storage area which is great for your charging equipment. However, there is no spare wheel, just an inflator kit, and also, the ID.5 doesn’t get a frunk like many of its electric contemporaries.

Value is an interesting thing in this case. When you compare the ID.5’s $72,990, before-on-road costs, starting price against its ID.4 Pro sibling (which starts from just $59,990) it doesn’t feel like great value.

This feeling continues when you start to line it up against recently-arrived mid-size electric Chinese offerings, like Leapmotor’s C10 (from $43,888) and Geely’s EX5 (from $40,990). 

But the ID.5 is designed to be a cut above, with a punchy all-wheel drive powertrain, and a relatively large battery, and when you consider its price against, say, the Toyota bZ4X (from $74,900 in AWD form), Subaru Solterra (from $69,990), or high-grade versions of cars a size-bracket down, like the Hyundai Kona Premium (from $68,000) or Kia Niro GT-Line (from $72,360), the ID.5 suddenly starts to look like great value.

If you want my opinion? The ID.4 Pro is still the pick of the two on raw numbers, especially since the difference in standard equipment seems to hardly justify the additional price jump, but I can see how the ID. 5 GTX can make a case for itself.

On the topic of standard equipment, the ID.5 GTX has VW’s signature ‘Matrix’ LED headlights, flush doorhandles, '3D-effect' LED tail-lights, privacy glass, an upgrade to 20-inch alloy wheels and contrasting black highlight trims with GTX highlights on the outside.

On the inside the ID.5 scores a 12.9-inch multimedia touchscreen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity, a 5.3-inch digital instrument cluster, ambient interior lighting, tri-zone climate control, a panoramic glass roof (with powered shade), a premium Harman Kardon audio system and sports front seats trimmed in leather and 'microfleece' fabric, with power adjust, heating, and message functions for the front two positions.

On the performance front it gets the same adaptive chassis control (with frequency responsive dampers, adjustable settings and progressive steering) as the ID.4 Pro, but from there it adds a second motor (on the front axle) and all-wheel drive software with additional drive modes and an 'ESC Sport' setting.

It’s good kit, but whether it’s enough to tempt you away from its closest competitors, like the futuristic Kia EV5 GT-Line (from $71,770), incoming new Tesla Model Y (from $58,900) or unusual XPeng G6 (from $54,800) is a tough question.

This will be the last time Maserati gets to enjoy a proper Ferrari engine - a 3.8-litre twin-turbo V8 good for 433kW and 730Nm - before it moves to a more electrified future, but it’s certainly going out with a lot of loud bangs.

Deafeningly lovely, the V8, which drives the rear wheels, will shove you to a shouty 100km/h in 4.3 seconds (fast, but not stupidly so, although it feels even quicker) on your way to a very Italian top speed of 326km/h. 

We can report that it exceeds 200km/h with consummate ease and has epic amounts of torque on tap.

Instead of a frunk there’s simply a mess of hardware under the bonnet which is largely related to the ID.5’s high-voltage and cooling systems, but what sets the GTX apart is the addition of a front motor to add to the standard rear one.

It’s not a huge power boost. The ID.4 already puts out 210kW/545Nm, and the front motor on the ID.5 simply adds 40 additional kW for totals of 250kW/545Nm (as the torque figures for the two don’t simply add together).

Its claimed 0-100km/h sprint time of 5.4 seconds isn't bad, especially compared to combustion equivalents, but it’s also not as breakneck fast as some of its EV rivals.

Instead, the additional motor for the ID.5 GTX is more about adding something to the handling equation, as well as the dependability of all-wheel drive and additional drive modes. More on this shortly.

Maserati claims a slightly inexact fuel-economy figure of 12.3 to 12.6 litres per 100km, but good luck ever achieving it. The desire to open the taps and really chew some fuel will aways be overwhelming. 

We drove it on a race track and would easily have been exceeding 20 litres per 100km, so our test figure is probably best not spoken about.

One of the biggest benefits of the Australian market waiting this long for VW’s ID. range is the upgraded battery and charging offering.

The ID.5 GTX has a larger battery than the ID.4, measuring 84kWh which helps off-set its slightly less efficient all-wheel drive system. The result is a WLTP driving range of 522km between charges, which is only 22km less than the ID.4. It’s still plentiful, and on the higher end at this price point.

Additionally, the charging specs are great. A peak speed of 175kW on DC means a charge time of around 22 minutes (10 - 80 per cent) on a pylon capable of outputting such a speed, while on AC it is 11kW, making it worthwhile plugging in down at the local shops.

The big missed opportunity here is the lack of vehicle-to-load, vehicle-to-grid or a household power outlet in the cabin or boot. These are convenient features becoming more prevalent in the market. At least VW throws in a wall socket and a Type 2-to-Type 2 charging cable as standard.

We were fortunate enough to drive all three Trofeo models - Ghibli, Levante and Quattroporte - on the track at Sydney Motorsport Park, which really is the only way to fully appreciate vehicles with Ferrari V8 engines, 433kW and rear-wheel drive.

Maserati is keen to point out that other premium brands don’t offer that kind of grunt in their rear-drive cars, indeed most of them are going all-wheel drive, and that level of playfulness is a real USP, it believes.

The thing is, the company also acknowledges that its buyers are older, wiser and wealthier types moving up from the German brands. 

The Trofeo range, in particular, then, is a real niche within a niche. I picture Maserati buyers as being slightly sedate yet stylish. Fans of the nicer things in life, but not flashy, or thrashy, about the cars they drive.

And yet, unlike other Maseratis, the Trofeos are flame-spitting beasts that sound like Game of Thrones dragons. Clearly there are people who like their classy Italian saloons to be insanely fast and track ready. And hooray for them, because as weird as it seems to flog a car like this so hard, the Trofeo Ghibli was well and truly up for it.

It’s also the pick of the litter, being less SUV like than the SUV Levante, and less stupidly long and heavy than the Quattroporte. 

Its shorter wheelbase and lighter weight make it the most fun and light on its feet when being thrown around. We hit an easy 235km/h on the front straight before hurling into Turn One well north of 160km/h, and the Ghibli just held on tight before using its torque to hurl it at the next bend.

It sounds, as I’ve said, amazing, but it’s worth saying again because it’s a real Maserati (or Ferrari, really) advantage of choosing this car.

The brakes are also up to the task of repeated track-hard stops, the steering is lighter and less talkative than a Ferrari perhaps, but still excellent, and the whole Trofeo Ghibli experience is best described, on circuit, as being better than you would possibly imagine.

Out on the road, you don’t have to put up with the firm ride that pressing the Corsa button compels, and the Ghibli reverts to its smooth, cruiser persona - while still looking sporty as hell.

The only letdown is the seats, which are a little on the firm side, but everything else about the cabin is so luxe you almost forgive it. 

While this car makes no sense to me, it obviously excites enough people for Maserati to make a business case, and charge $265,000 for the Trofeo Ghibli. Good luck to them, I say.

The ID.5 GTX isn’t quite in the same vein as other ‘performance’ EVs. It feels more measured than a Tesla Model Y Performance for example. But then it also feels a lot more organic. It feels a lot more like a car.

This is because rather than focus on straight-line performance, the GTX has benefits when it comes to its handling. Compared to the ID.4, for example, the ID.5 is sharper on its front axle, adding a little additional torque at the front to make it sharper and faster to grab the tarmac.

Its accelerator response may be comparatively steady, but somehow the ID.5’s more traditional stability control tuning allows it to have a bit more leeway when you push it in the corners. It grants it a little extra fun factor, where some rivals are too locked down.

Additionally, VW’s experience in providing a balanced ride and sharp steering tune is on full show. While a lot of electric vehicles in this class feel a little over-electrically assisted or even vague when it comes to the steering, the ID.5 feels connected and accurate.

The adjustable ride settings are also a rare win for an electric mid-sizer. This is because you can adjust the ride to suit the conditions. If you’re on a bumpy suburban road for example, you can keep it nice and soft. But if you’re out carving corners in the countryside, a much firmer setting is available to help limit the amount of floaty rebound this car’s low-set battery weight can have.

It does adjust in a limited band, so there’s still a bit of softness to it, which combines with the predominantly rear-drive characteristics to make for a distinctly different vehicle to a Tiguan, for example.

It’s simply not as athletic as VW’s finely-tuned combustion offerings, but then its more plush open-road feel isn’t necessarily worse. At the very least it maintains all those key refinement characteristics which make Volkswagens generally a cut above to drive.

Another key aspect of the driving experience these days is how much active safety equipment wants to interfere with the experience. Many newer automakers struggle with calibrating for Australian conditions, and yet, like many European automakers, Volkswagen has nailed it with the tuning of these systems in the ID.4 and ID.5.

I wasn’t annoyed by any system, even repeat offenders like lane keep assist or driver attention monitoring in our whole two-day drive, which speaks volumes about the difference between the ID.5 and something like a Leapmotor C10.

The ID.5 comes equipped with the full array of active safety gear as standard, with autobahn-speed auto emergency braking, lane keep assist, blind-spot monitoring, rear auto braking, rear cross-traffic alert and adaptive cruise control.

It is also equipped with seven airbags (including the more recently-introduced front centre airbag) and wears a maximum five-star ANCAP safety rating... for NZ-delivered variants. Australia will surely follow soon, but at the time of writing the ID.5 is not ANCAP rated for this side of the Tasman.

Maserati offers a three-year, unlimited kilometre warranty, but you can choose to buy 12-month or two-year warranty extensions, and even a sixth or seventh-year drive-train warranty extension. 

When much, much cheaper Japanese and Korean cars are offering seven and even 10-year warranties, this is so far off the pace that such a fast vehicle should be embarrassed. And if you're buying something Italian, a better, longer warranty would seem like a must. I'd be negotiating at sale for them to throw the longer warranty offer in.

Maserati says servicing for the Ghibli has a "ball park costing of $2700.00 for the first three years of ownership" with a service schedule of every 20,000km or 12 months (whichever occurs first)

Also, "please note that the above is indicative only of the manufacturers basic routine service maintenance schedule and does not include any consumable items such as tyres, brakes etc or additional dealership charges such as environmental levies etc."

VW hasn’t used this opportunity to increase its standard warranty terms of five years and unlimited kilometres, however, the battery pack is covered by an industry standard eight-year/160,000km deal. 

There are other ownership perks designed to coax people into an electric car, though. Servicing, for example, is only required once every 24 months or 30,000km and when packaged up at the time of purchase, very affordable.

A 10 year or 150,000km plan costs $2890, or just $289 a year, which is excellent for a European car, and is even more affordable than some of its Korean and Chinese rivals with generally longer service intervals.

On top of this, VW stresses the repairability of its battery components, and promises parts supply will continue for 10 years after the discontinuation of the ID.4 and ID.5 range in its current form, with repairability through its network for at least 15 years.