VW e-Golf BEV 136ps Review

e-Golf Look and Living

I last owned a Golf in the late 1990s.  I was thrilled with the car at the time – a medium family hatch back that drove great and could fit in just about anything.  Roll forward 20 years later and some 4 or 5 models, I was excited to meet the new e-Golf.

With the e-Golf, you’re buying a Golf – very similar design to the other variations in the Golf range.  It will seat 5, has loads of head room, spacious driver cockpit, sensible dashboard controls – good solid VW tech.  Very tricky for the uninitiated to pick out the e-Golf in the dealers parking lot (clues – radiator grill and alloy wheels are optimised for efficiency).  So if you like Golfs, this has to be a big Green tick.  And yes, the e-Golf has the slowest 0-62mph of the lot at 9.6 seconds, but it’s 0-30mph is very zippy due to the electric powertrain as you would expect.  Horses for courses. 8/10

Technology

With the e-Golf, you pick up a popular optional extra for some of the other Golf models as standard – the rear lights are LED with the Knight Rider sweeping function which are a nice touch.  Blue e-Design accents and blue-backed VW logos come your way as well.

Front Assist including Adaptive Cruise Control is standard giving you radar sensor controlled distance monitoring, city emergency braking system and predictive pedestrian protection.  There are several not-inexpensive Lane assist optional extras to consider for added safety.

We discussed the possible impact of the Active info display (option: £495) on battery life.  It’s colour touch-screen with activated voice control system – responds to voice commands for navigation, CD, DVD and radio functions. The display looks really good so I’d want one. 8 / 10

Performance and Drive

I liked it.  City driving was smooth and quick.  The auto-handbrake technology was sensible.

With a top speed of 93 MPH, I was quite interested to see how the car would take to the motorway.  I had no difficulties at all with 70 MPH motorway cruising, lane changing and acceleration when you need it for over taking or lane adjustment.  The range indicator behaved sensibly as we cruised and as you would expect when we accelerated. 9/10

Range, charging and Greenness

We had some interesting conversations about e-Golf range during our test drive.  The NEDC Sticker range is 186 miles / 300km.  Nice round number.  The VW site has lots of TBAs for Urban and Extra Urban range stats.  During the test drive, I was informed to expect to get from 120 to 130 miles from a fully charged newer technology battery.

VWs own range calculator suggests a 25% range reduction for “Country Driving” due to the lack of recuperation of brake energy.   Acceleration impact on range estimation was evident during the test drive – heavy acceleration, get ready for the blue.  Seeing as we stayed at sea level throughout, we didn’t get to test the Altitude impact on range.  It’s also quite hard to simulate ambient temperature ranges during a test drive but the calculator suggests a 15% drop in range from 15C to 0C – colder it gets outside, larger the drop in range.  The optional Heat Pump (which recycles waste heat from drivetrain) will set you back £830.

We played with the Driving Modes during the test using the ‘Discover Pro’ navigation system.  3 choices: Normal, ECO, ECO+.  The power output decreases between each mode to maximise range.  ECO+ helpfully shut off air-conditioning to conserve battery life.  I was slightly relieved that when we flipped to ECO+ the Active info display wasn’t disabled in an attempt to squeeze out a couple of extra miles.

The battery carries an 8 year warranty with a DC charge time of an hour (though we were discussing 40-45 minutes for 80% charge at high speed charge points during out test drive) and almost 11 hours for AC. 8/10

Specification and Extras

We debated the self-parking option (£600) and ended up relying on standard front and rear parking sensors which come standard.

Our test model also had the key-less entry option (£375).

If you’re happy with the current 30+ week delivery estimate (not 100% sure how many weeks the plus stands for), you can drive away your own e-Golf from £32,730 before government grants, discounts and optional extras.  I’m considering one.  7/10

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