Choosing which EV to go back to - Volkswagen eGolf - EV Review

Hello all,

Before I start, it has been a while. I have not been as active as I used to be. This is due to my baby boy arriving in under 9 weeks now! The time has flown by and I cannot wait for him to be here in my arms. I have been a busy guy trying to get things ready, for one, my man cave had to go for his nursery (R.I.P) man cave.

Anyway, I am sick and tired driving an ICE car. It really frustrates me to the bone these cars are about and people choose to drive them :joy:  I have been away from and EV for too long and deciding to go back to one. I have raised my budget to a bit more than what it used to be so I have a bit more flexibility to what I can get. 

Please read my article I wrote moving away from ICE to EV. https://forum.ovoenergy.com/owning-an-ev-87/my-transition-from-petrol-to-ev-1892

Over the weekend 21/09/2019. I had the opportunity to test drive the 100% Electric Golf. I am not a VW person, I can’t stand how they are built. I prefer my japanese built cars. Anyway, I thought I would give it a go and see how well the WLPT range holds up to what VW claims. First impressions of the service from VW were not the best. One thing which really annoys me about sales people is they think they can blag a sale. I pretended I didn’t know anything about EV’s and asked general questions such as “What is the range like? How long does it take to charge on rapid chargers, any warranty on the battery? How big is the battery (Kwh)” You know the typical ones you would ask. Anyway, the answers were

“What is the range like?” - Oh you can easily get over 200 miles

“How long does it take to charge on rapid chargers?” - Oh only about 15-20 minutes from 0% to 80%

“Any warranty on the battery?” - Yes, but cannot remember how long

“How big is the battery?” - It’s on the same as a Tesla

After the sales person showed he has not been trained what to say or trained about the EV I had to just step in and say I have owned EV’s in the past and correct him on a few things and told him it’s not his fault about the lack of knowledge but if dealerships expect to sell EV’s much faster, they need to get their act together and train sales people! Anyway, after getting in the car, it only had about 10% battery so I complained and said now I have to go and charge the car to get use out of it. Luckily I still have my 7Kw pod point charger at home so I leave it on charge for an hour and took it out into town to see how it feels. Overall a very nice experience, the car is built very well but still feels heavy like a normal golf. The car had a lot of room with enough boot space to place a push chair and shopping. Now with the “how is the torque?” Well…. I feel like my 24kw Nissan leaf was nippier off the mark. Not sure if this is because of the weight of the Golf but it certainly did had torque from 0mph to 60mph. 

I thought seeing as I had the car for 24 hours I would leave the car on charge over night to give me 100%. Not sure how long it took to charge to 100% but when I woke up and unplugged the car. it had nearly 170 miles of range which I thought was lovely. Just to let everyone know the golf carries a 32Kwh battery. With all this range I thought I would test it and see how it would be going to Canterbury town centre which is an hours drive from me. I must say the range on the golf was spot on and can see it being a big seller as long as sales people push for it. Android Auto is a fantastic bit of kit, Google assistance in the car is magic. My next cars to test drive will be the Kia Niro EV, MG ZS EV, Hyundai Ioniq and Nissan Leaf 40kw. No I refuse to drive a hybrid. No they are not “self charging” It’s a disgraceful marketing slogan to force people to buy hybrids! Luckily, Robert can explain all of this for you all :) 

Here are some pictures of the VW Golf I drove.