eGolf review

Detroit Free Press review of the eGolf:
http://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/mark-phelan/2015/06/04/vw-volkswagen-golf-electric-review-ev-egolf/28322657/

When I was trying to make up my mind on buying an EV, I went and drove the e-Golf. I was very impressed, I definitely liked it. But, it came down to price. The e-Golf starts out about $6K more than the Focus, with less features, and after the discounts / rebates Ford was offering, the difference was over $12K. The e-Golf was good, but it certainly wasn't $12K better than the FFE.

Keith

And for me a deal-killer is the lack of liquid battery cooling.

Did you catch the typo in the article? 209 hours to charge!!!

Yeah I did a double take: "209"! Wow--thats a huge battery!

Is the range of the e-Golf significantly more than the FFE?

83 mile range.

Nice article.

What no USB port!!! I'm never buying one.

michael said:

And for me a deal-killer is the lack of liquid battery cooling.

Click to expand...

And, while maybe not a deal killer, a couple people have e-Golfs where I work. We all quickly learned that these cars rudely lock onto whatever J1772 handle is plugged into them. Once plugged, the handle cannot be released. You need the driver to physically come to the car and unlock the plug. There is no option (AFAIK) to disable the auto-locking, or to unlock remotely. Makes for sharing charging stations somewhat inconvenient whenever the e-Golf is there. It also, perhaps unfairly, makes their owners seem like jerks.

What is it with the German EVs and this "locking when plugged" business? Both the e-Golf and i3 have this obnoxious behavior.

WattsUp said:

michael said:

And for me a deal-killer is the lack of liquid battery cooling.

Click to expand...

And, while maybe not a deal killer, a couple people have e-Golfs where I work. We all quickly learned that these cars rudely lock onto whatever J1772 handle is plugged into them. Once plugged, the handle cannot be released. You need the driver to physically come to the car and unlock the plug. There is no option (AFAIK) to disable the auto-locking, or to unlock remotely. Makes for sharing charging stations somewhat inconvenient whenever the e-Golf is there. It also, perhaps unfairly, makes their owners seem like jerks.

What is it with the German EVs and this "locking when plugged" business? Both the e-Golf and i3 have this obnoxious behavior.

Click to expand...

In Europe public EVSEs don't have cords or J1772 plugs. Drivers have to carry their own cords to be able to utilize. Locking plug port keeps these expensive cords from being stolen. The real question is, why didn't BMW and VW make the locking behavior customizeable so you could set it to not lock, or unlock once charging was complete.

twscrap said:

The real question is, why didn't BMW and VW make the locking behavior customizeable so you could set it to not lock, or unlock once charging was complete.

Click to expand...

Yes, or at least change the behavior for the US models. Seems like lack of market research.

How thoughtless

I would tell them they are not allowed to use the installed EVSE units at our company, and to restrict themselves to portable "plug in the wall" chargers. We all do "plug sharing" as required. This way they could still be unplugged from the wall.

Owners of Volts which alarm upon unplug are told in no uncertain terms to disable that option. It just doesn't work with shared charging.

WattsUp said:

michael said:

And for me a deal-killer is the lack of liquid battery cooling.

Click to expand...

And, while maybe not a deal killer, a couple people have e-Golfs where I work. We all quickly learned that these cars rudely lock onto whatever J1772 handle is plugged into them. Once plugged, the handle cannot be released. You need the driver to physically come to the car and unlock the plug. There is no option (AFAIK) to disable the auto-locking, or to unlock remotely. Makes for sharing charging stations somewhat inconvenient whenever the e-Golf is there. It also, perhaps unfairly, makes their owners seem like jerks.

What is it with the German EVs and this "locking when plugged" business? Both the e-Golf and i3 have this obnoxious behavior.

Click to expand...

Why does the owner have to come and physically unplug their own car? Does the car need to detect the proximity sensor in the key fob to release the J1772 handle?

Many of the comments here reflect something I just realized: The eGolf review I linked to was done by a reviewer familiar with ICE vehicles and thus didn't cover many of these EV details we've been discussing.

I wonder if a review from Inside EVs or Green Car Reports would point out some of these EV related issues that the ICE reviewer missed.

hybridbear said:

Why does the owner have to come and physically unplug their own car? Does the car need to detect the proximity sensor in the key fob to release the J1772 handle?

Click to expand...

Something like that. All I know is that they have no ability to release it remotely.

Same goes for the BMW i3 even with it's super-kewl keyfob. The Ultimate EVSE-hogging Machine. (TM)

WattsUp said:

hybridbear said:

Why does the owner have to come and physically unplug their own car? Does the car need to detect the proximity sensor in the key fob to release the J1772 handle?

Click to expand...

Something like that. All I know is that they have no ability to release it remotely.

Same goes for the BMW i3 even with it's super-kewl keyfob. The Ultimate EVSE-hogging Machine. (TM)

Click to expand...

When I participated in the extended test drive for the i3, the guy that was showing us all of the features (he was called the "BMW Genius", no kidding!!) told us about this feature, and actually put it forward as a benefit that other electric car makers didn't offer. He said that people would come along and unplug your car even if it wasn't charged so that they could charge their car, or just to mess with you. I opinioned that it would just entice folks to vandalize the car if they couldn't get the plug to come out when charging was over. He had no response to that.

Keith

Several makers have failed to properly handle shared charging situations. Both Leaf and RAV-4 make it so that the "charge now" option is one-time only.

The problem occurs when someone who has the charge timer programmed comes to work, sets "charge now", and plugs in. At our places the charging stations have various length "hoses" that reach certain spots and not others. Then the next guy needs to rearrange "hoses" so that a longer one can reach his parking spot and replugs the original car with some other hose. But the thing reverts to charge timer and doesn't resume charging.

Ford handled this well by making the "charge now" and "charge later" options sticky...Nissan and Toyota didn't. Others may have this problem too, I don't have experience.

michael said:

Several makers have failed to properly handle shared charging situations. Both Leaf and RAV-4 make it so that the "charge now" option is one-time only.

Click to expand...

The Leaf & Rav4 EV don't have location based charging settings?

I don't know about Leaf. Rav does not. You charge immediately or at some later time vaguely defined by a go time.

The car is supposed to start charging so that it will be ready a half hour before you need it. In reality, it adds a big safety factor, starts much sooner than necessary. Since the battery has 42 kWh usable, it can be starting well before midnight for morning departures.

One use has developed a separate web and smartphone based program called "Ravcharge" to somewhat compensate for limitations in the onboard charge timer system. This third party system at least allows you to guarantee charge start at a particular time (in case the onboard unit doesn't work) and allows "not before" times. But in no case is it location based.