A Volts-wagen from Wolfsburg

Story and pictures by Roy Nakano

The State of the Electric Car Art

Aside from the megabuck Tesla, the current state of the electric car art carries an EPA (Environmental Protection Agency)-rated range of about 80 miles per charge. For those with commutes to other counties, that’s a wee bit short for comfort. Adding to the anxiety is the fact that real world use doesn’t always match EPA ratings.

Here’s another wrench into the works: The EPA no longer tests all the vehicles any more. Instead, it relies on the manufacturer to do its own testing—and it audits the results of 10-15 percent of the vehicles (the EPA audited Hyundai, and ended up sanctioning the company for inflating its results).

An Electric Car in the Real World

The time behind the wheel of the new e-Golf electric car leads one to believe that Volkswagen played it conservative on the EPA ratings. We’ve evaluated electric cars with higher EPA ratings that didn’t fare as well as the e-Golf in regular, day-to-day driving. Driving on the freeway from Monrovia to Santa Ana and back to Monrovia (an 80-mile round trip) left us with 30 miles to spare. Of course, it did help to stay out of the fast lane. We’ve taken the same route several times with an EPA-rated 87-mile range electric car that consistently left us with less than 10 to spare. This bodes well for the e-Golf in real world driving (it’s EPA rating is 83 miles on a single charge, with a miles per gallon equivalent rating of 126 miles in the city and 105 on the highway).

As an added measure against range anxiety, the e-Golf comes with Volkswagen’s Roadside Assistance Plan. If the car runs out of charge within 100 miles of the home, Volkswagen will arrange for the car to be delivered to a nearby source for charging, as well as pay any taxi or transportations fees the owner. If you’re in Monrovia, 100 miles is like a trip to Palm Springs.

VW Delivers an Aftershock

With the e-Golf, Volkswagen arrives fashionably late to the electric car party. It was one of the last of the major manufacturers to offer a hybrid (choosing to equip it with a turbocharger). The same was true with its SUV line (choosing to partner with Porsche). For its new e-Golf, Volkswagen had plenty of time to think about how it should be designed. It also had the time to work off of a new platform—one that’s designed from the ground up to be an electric car. The result is one of the best electric cars in its class.

The most noticeable difference between the e-Golf and the other electric cars hovering in its price category is its level of quality. Everything from the fit and finish of the interior, to the way the doors close, to the way the switches and controls all work speak “luxury car”. Never mind that the leather interior is mostly something called V-Tex leatherette. Or that the soft touch doors were executed without sacrificing any animal skins. This is a quality product you take notice of once you get behind the wheel.

Electric Glide in Blue

The second thing one notices about the e-Golf is that it looks like a blue label version of the GTI. The GTI has a red strip running across it’s grille and over its headlights. The e-Golf has a blue strip doing the same. The GTI has red-stitching throughout its interior. The e-Golf is stitched in blue. And for good measure, all the badging on the e-Golf is accented in blue. Like the GTI, the e-Golf is light on its feet, nimble around corners, and offers gobs of low-end torque. Unlike the GTI, the e-Golf delivers that torque with ultra smooth linearity—smoother than any turbocharged car, and even smoother than a V6 or V8.

Once you’re on the road, you’ll be struck by how quiet the car glides along. It’s a quality it shares with other electric vehicles. The e-Golf has the added benefit of delivering that quietness it in a solid, equally quiet cabin. And because the new Golf’s MQB (Modular Transverse Matrix) platform was designed with electrification in mind, the battery pack gives up no interior volume to other Golf hatchbacks. The e-Golf does have the requisite low-speed sound system to help alert pedestrians (particularly sightless pedestrians) to the approaching vehicle. Thankfully, it’s a more appealing sound than some of the other vehicle proximity notification systems out there on the market (hello, Toyota).

The Electric Crystal Ball

As a showing that the car company is committed to the future of electrification, VW has teamed up with BMW and ChargePoint to create electric car corridors on both the west and east coasts of the USA. ChargePoint says it already has around 20,000 chargers throughout the country. The new initiative calls for close to 100 DC fast chargers to be built, allowing drivers to travel from San Diego to Portland, and from Washington DC to Boston. Right now, very few of these fast chargers exist, but the e-Golf is fast charger-ready. With a Level 3 DC charger, it’s capable of reaching 80 percent charge in 30 minutes.

Whether all this is enough for you to take the electric plunge depends on you and whether you have a back-up vehicle for those occasions, however rare, when you need to go beyond the electric blue yonder. For now, it appears that the e-Golf represents the state of the pure electric car art in the under $30,000 (net) class.

The writer is the executive editor of LA Car. The photographs of the vehicle were taken at the South Coast Air Quality Management District in Diamond Bar, California. For more information on and photographs of the Volkswagen e-Golf, see LACar.com or Facebook.com/lacarcom.

The bottom line:
$35,445 (plus $820 destination and delivery charge)
Up to $7,500 Federal tax credit (purchased vehicles only)
Up to $2,500 California cash rebate (purchased and leased vehicles)
$299/month lease, $2000 down payment (CA cash rebate pays the down payment and first $500 of the lease payments)

VW e-Golf standard equipment:
Level 3 DC charging capability (80 percent in 30 minutes), VW Car-Net connected services, VW Roadside Assistance Plan, ChargePoint access, LED headlights and LED daytime running lights, 7.2 kW onboard charger, 16-inch aluminum alloy wheels, heat pump, touchscreen navigation and 8-speaker infotainment system with CD, MDI and iPod integration, Sirius XM Satellite Radio, Media Device Interface, V-Tex leatherette seating surfaces, leather-wrapped multifunction steering wheel and shifter knob, heatable front seats, Climatronic dual zone automatic climate control, front and rear Park Distance Control, rearview camera, and rain-sensing windshield wipers.