My Adventures with Electric Past - 2016 VW e-Golf

Our results have been similar to yours but you are definitely winning at efficiency.  My wife drives ours most on very short commutes to work (like a few miles) which it truly is perfect for.  We get something in the 4.5-5 miles per kWh range.  My number is lower because when I drive it I have a very hard time staying out of the loud pedal from 0-40 haha.

Like you, highway efficiency drops quite a bit, to the low 3s.  However, it's still amazing for trips to my father in law's house which is just about a 70 mile round trip.  It costs us something around $1.50 in electricity to do the trip rather than about $10 in gasoline in our Wrangler.  I'll take it!

It also looks like we share a similar experience relative to issues.  Ours has been 100% reliable with literally zero issues.  We just press the button and go!

For as overall slow as this car is, every time I drive it I genuinely enjoy it.  It's crazy how happy an appliance aimed at economy can make a driver.

I had an... exciting... drive to work yesterday that I thought was worth sharing. I try to do most of my charging at work (because free). This works out fine most days during the spring, summer, and fall as I can drive the round trip from and to work with more than 40% battery charge remaining. Well, in the winter the e-Golf's efficiency drops quite a bit. Mostly a direct correlation with temperature. I can compensate for this by adjusting the minimum state of charge setting in the car. That way when it is plugged it charges to at least that much, regardless of other settings. I usually have this at 40% during warmer days and 50% during the winter.

Well, yesterday it was zero degrees Fahrenheit in the morning and I woke up thinking, "I didn't adjust my minimum charge level. I wonder if I'll be able to make it to work?" I walked out to the car 30 minutes before I needed to leave: 21 miles of range. It's a 14 mile drive, but the car usually uses 20 miles of indicated range for the trip. Yikes! I immediately got the car charging to get what extra range I could before I needed to leave. It uses 20 miles of indicated range because the morning drive to work is colder than the afternoon drive home and it uses the efficiency last trip as a guide for the next one. 

A half hour later I unplugged the car and got ready to go. 26 miles of range. Ok. That should be fine. Then I turned on the ignition and the car corrected the range down to 23 miles. Well, that's going to be tight. But I can always turn off the HVAC and rely on the heated seat to get extra range. Let's give it a try. About a mile and a half down the road, this was the dashboard:

Of note:

• I've already lost 3 miles of indicated range. Pretty normal because the HVAC is busy using lots of energy to get the interior warm (even though I did pre-warm the interior before I left).
• It's 2 degrees outside.
• The little gauge in the bottom left shows that the car is limiting maximum power because the battery is cold.

At this point, I could probably turn back home and take Mrs. ShawneeCreek's 4 cylinder Focus instead. I decided to press on and see what happens. Obviously keeping a very close eye on range remaining vs distance to work.

The drive was pretty efficient, other than the cold. The icy roads forced slow acceleration, slow regen braking, and a lower top speed. Despite all that, this was the dashboard at the stop sign 2.5 miles from work:

Ok. Six miles of range left. I should make it to work fine. But notice that max power gauge. Yeah, it is now just above the red. I'm not sure what that correlates to as I've never gotten it here before. Let's find out. I turned the corner and accelerated with my foot nearly to the floor and peaked at 22% power on the big gauge. That works out to about 40 hp. It took more than a quarter of a mile to reach the 55 mph speed limit. And you know how much power it took to maintain 55, mph? You guessed it: about 20% power. Oof. At least I'm at the speed limit.

By the time that I got to work (2 miles later) my maximum speed was 52 mph. Less good. But I made it with the dashboard looking like this:

Low battery indicator on. 4 miles of range left with about 10% charge on the battery. And still limiting power because the battery is cold and low on charge. I plugged the car in and it was fully charged 2.5 hours later.

Range is going to be tighter this week with temperatures hovering around 15 degrees, but the car works. I'm just right near it's limit. And I may have to do some charging at home. Not too bad, all things considered.

- Sean

The cold does a number!

I also use the free charging at work and love it, but had to plug in last night to make sure I would have range for an extra 10 mile trip this morning in the cold. Sure was faster than stopping at a gas station!

Interesting! I saw an OutofSpec video about their eGolf project over the weekend and it jogged my memory about your car. 

If you precondition at home while plugged in, does it pull from the battery at all?

Today was my first experience with the Bolt in the cold (5deg). I charge at home, and have been preconditioning if temps are below 35 or so. 

I was also abit surprised on the way in to see efficiency going up on the highway because speeds were down to 40-45 due to the snow; ended up at 3.0 by the time I got to work.

In reply to ShawneeCreek :

I have had a few of these moments in our e Golf as well.  We park it outside at our home in CT and even just after leaving the driveway the range starts to sink in the cold.  I am currently allowing the car to charge to 100% (I've read that VW put in a buffer to protect the batteries so it's not truly 100%) whereas in summer I usually limit it to 90%.

Our car has the larger battery and in theory should be good for 124 miles on a charge, but we often make a trip that is about 60 miles total and in winter it sometimes becomes a nail-biter like your trip.

I absolutely adore our car but I have to admit that the cold climate performance has dampened my enthusiasm for buying another EV in the near future.  I think we will wait for faster charging and longer ranges before the next one joins our fleet.

In reply to XLR99 (Forum Supporter) :

It will use the battery to precondition the interior, because I have that option selected. Otherwise it will only do it while connected to a live charger.

In reply to Loweguy5 :

Yeah, charging our e-Golfs to 100% isn't really an issue for the batteries. We only have access to ~80% of the battery capacity.

Don't hold all EVs to the cold weather performance of our cars. The e-Golf batteries are air-cooled (in classic Volkswagen tradition, lol). Most modern EV have liquid-cooled battery packs that also allow the cars to heat the batteries in cold weather for better efficiency and faster charging at level 3 DC fast chargers.

Wasn't the  e-Golf only sold in CA? Cold weather performance may not have been a design priority :) This is interesting stuff to read about. And it sounds like the limited performance of a very cold Golf on low battery is about the same as my old Land Rover.

The ability to precondition the interior is a major feature of EVs for our family. I doubt it uses any more power than waiting to warm the car under way. I know that the Teslas (at least) will actually use the heat from the motors to help warm the car, but it's nowhere near as much help as you get from a gas car that is turning the majority of its fuel into heat. 

I'm pretty sure cold weather performance was not a design goal. The owners manual comes straight out and tells me that the car "will not start at temperatures below -15 degrees Fahrenheit to protect the battery." Most ICE vehicle design specifications that I have seen call out an ambient temperature operating range of -40 to 120 degrees. The e-Golf was very much a compliance car and you can tell where Volkswagen made compromises to save design time and money. But it's still a really decent car. Just not for cold winter climates.

E Golfs were originally sold in CA and in the Northeast...so...

And yes I get it relating to our batteries being air-cooled.  I'm not down on my car one bit.  It will be a great car for kid #1 to take to college in a couple of years.

Once I've built our second garage and I can park a new EV inside to charge I will feel more inclined to buy another one.

Yeah, I'm not ragging on the car for it, it was designed for a very different climate. It's definitely something you'd have to keep in mind!

I checked, and my car will apparently warn that there's decreased battery power (not range) available when it's really cold, although I don't know how cold that is. It's also not supposed to be kept below -22F for more than 24 hours, I assume without being on a charger?

With 700 treadwear all-weather tires this should be interesting. Fun too. Apparently this is the first EV to autocross here.

You know, even though we have the Mustang GT I've been dying to get ours out on a course!  With all that weight down low I'll bet you will have a great time!

In reply to ShawneeCreek :

I think your traction control is going to call back to Wolfsburg pleading for help. 

Well, that was fun. But let's start at the beginning. I've been wanting to autocross the e-Golf since I bought it. But it just hasn't worked until now. The events were too far away or just conflicting with something else. But I was free this weekend and the event was 25 miles away. And the was a new set of DC fast chargers at a Shell station just 5 miles from the site. Game on! I left a half hour early with a full charge and headed to the Shell station. I got there with 70% charge remaining and was plugged in and charging in a minute. 

Interestingly, this is the first DC fast charging station I've ever seen with a ADA stall. Makes perfect sense though. Hopefully it becomes more common. That was also the only charger with a CHAdeMO plug. Shrug. Regardless, I kept myself busy while the car was charging by buying some snacks and wiping down the car. It peaked at 42 kW at the beginning and was down to about 8 kW when I stopped it 20 minutes later at 95%. Should be plenty for the day and I can always stop by on the way home to top up. 

So, autocross impressions. The e-Golf seems to have all the good handling habits that the GTI has, with the bonus of a lower center of gravity from the battery pack. Traction control and ABS were definitely working hard and overall grip levels from the all-weather tires were very low compared to everyone else on sticky tires. But the car never felt unstable or unpredictable. The instantly available torque is great fun and a definite change from a turbo car with lag. But the must startling thing was the lack of engine noise. You get a little bit of motor whine, but it's mostly tire and wind noise. Like playing a racing game with the sound off. Peaceful and a bit weird. Great fun though. Results are here if you want to poke around.

Best of all Mrs. ShawneeCreek and SC1 came by to watch for a bit. SC1 is fascinated by the cars, especially the noisy 2-stroke shifter karts.  We're going to have fun together as he grows up. 

I used about 5% of the battery for each of the 6 runs and was showing an average consumption of 1.5 mi/kWh since charging that morning. The 55% charge level was good enough to get me home with 15% charge or 10 miles of range remaining. I love it when a plan comes together. You can actually take an early CARB compliance EV to an autocross, compete with it, and drive home, and without much more effort than with a regular ICE car.

- Sean

Just had one of these show up at my office recently. We have so many new hires I'm not sure who's it is.  I'm enjoying your journey! Keep enjoying the car!

Shenanigans are afoot at Grattan Raceway... I'll be autocrossing on the track with the Furrin group today. This should be fun! 

- Sean

In reply to ShawneeCreek :

That's awesome!!

Well, that was a long day. And quite the adventure. I started with a full charge at the hotel and arrived at the track with 60% left. Thankfully one of the people at the gate had a second generation Chevy Volt with a charging cable capable of 220V operation and the plug adapters to work with what was at the track. He graciously loaned them to me so I could charge quickly. Timing heard about my low state of charge and moved me from the first run group to the third run group. I ended up with all the Mustangs and Miatas.

The e-Golf did really well on track. And the 700 treadwear Goodyear all-weather tires held up well. Apparently I was lifting the inside rear tire on most corners, even on the stock suspension. And "the jump" is super sketchy at 75+ mph. I used about 8% charge per run at 1.3 mi./kWh, so I was done after my six runs and elected not to do the one re-run I had. That turned out to be a good choice on my part, because the Red-E DC fast charger near the track refused to charge the car. Luckily the backup plan four miles down the road did charge the car, from three miles of range. Range anxiety hit hard that time. 

We're stopped now for hopefully the last charge on the way home. The ChargePoint network has been pretty good this trip. The Red-E network has failed me twice and won't be used again. And Electrify America was a 50% success rate.

- Sean