[snfosberry]

When it became apparent the e-golf was real I started to get quite excited as life long VW owner. I love the leaf, but have been thinking about what next, and with rumours of 130 or even 150 miles the possibility of more range makes the golf attractive.

Originally I read somewhere the golf was to have a 25 or maybe even a 27 kWh battery. Now it's here, we know it has a 24.1 kWh battery and VW are claiming 12.7kWh/100km and 118 mile range.

No chance.

I think this is going to be VWs '124 miles' number!

Firstly, if you do the maths, at 12.7kWh/100km 118 miles is *all* of the battery. That won't be allowed! Also, as the battery beds in, 24.1kWh won't be available for long. So the 118 number is look less and less likely.

If you compare some of the other numbers... (golf / leaf)
Weight : 1510kg / 1493kg
Drag : 0.28 / 0.28
Tyre size : 205/55/16 / 205/55/16

... The cars appear equals. So where is the magic?

OK, to be fair VW are saying 80 to 118, but it's the big number that catches people's eye. In the real world, I would guess that people will achieve more-or-less the same mileage in the e-golf as they can in a leaf.

Bit of a shame really.

 

[snfosberry]

Well, I look forward to getting behind the wheel of one to see. Currently I just don't see the difference. The cars are more-or-less the same weight, drag, power and battery size.

I generally have a round commute of 76 miles. It's far from flat, pretty much all motorway or A dual, and I usually average (with the heating off) 0.20kWh/mile. I can get it as low as 0.18kWh/mile if I concentrate. So on paper, if my leaf was new and I drove it like that until it stopped, I could have a real life range approx 130 miles, in a leaf 1.

There also the issue of battery ageing. This is fairly well understood now for leafs, but not VW. Will we see the same bedding in of the pack an loss of capacity?

What will be interesting to find out is where 12.7kWh/100km comes from and in what conditions it was recorded. I watched Fully Charged the other evening and Robert Lewelyn was heading down to this figure in town fairly easily it seemed. If it is a combined figure (which is fairly typical for them) it should be possible to shave 10-20%, and get down to 10kWh/100km or a theoretical range of all but 150 miles.... I may get 2 days out of a charge! ;-)

But... What have VW done? As I said, same size / weight / drag / battery / tyres etc. Better wheel bearings?

 

[snfosberry]

@Lee Dalton - yes, perhaps. Previously I had a VW Lupo '3L'. It was an import I registered over here as it was never a UK car.

It's was a 1.2 3cyl TDi with a automatic manual gearbox. In 'ECO' mode when you lifted off the throttle the ECU automatically depressed the clutch so the car would glide.

In ECO mode the car could achieve a combined economy figure of over 90 mpg, even at 10 years old and with over 100,000 miles on the clock.

I've not yet driven the e-up (or the XL1!), but looking at Charged Up episode the e-up has a zero regen glide mode.

This will help the golds economy but I would expect it to be perhaps 5%, not the 25%+ the golf is claiming on VW figures.

We will see!

 

[snfosberry]

I'd be interested to know how some people are hacking the stats / figures in Carwings...

What I do know is on a 75 mile round trip commute I can average 5 miles / kWh on a good day in my leaf 1, and not hit Low Battery Warning. That's a lot better than 'book' and the Nissan official figures.

I look forward to trying the golf... ;-)