Thoughts on eGolf
 

I saw a lease offer on VW's site for the base 2016 eGolf for $169/month (IIRC) with not that much down (~2800), and that got me interested.

Background for those who don't know. eGolf was introduced in 2015 as a high-end Golf (7.2kW charger, Nav, LED lights, etc). MSRP was ~37k. With $10k in incentives it looked like a good deal, but not great for people whose alternative was supposed to be a sub $10K car.

For 2016, VW decided to offer a lower trim for only upper $20k's (cloth, no nav, no LED' and only 3.6kW charger - bad). Despite that, given our use (9-mile round trip commute, and a handfull of 5 mile or less trips to schools, store, etc), we figured "who cares if it takes forever to charge?" One full charge (~85 miles) can easily last a week. Also, with $10k from incentives plus VW cash, that base eGolf gets pretty cheap - hence the attractive lease offer.

Dealer didn't have any 2016's but had a leftover loaded '15. Wife liked all the features, and after all incentives, the 3 year, 30k mile lease will cost us a total of ~$8k. Pretty hard to say no. Also, '15's had free maintenance for first couple of years which is mandatory on lease.

So we got it. Nice to have all the fancy features plus LED lights and most importantly, the better charger.

I'll try to limit comments to EV-specific things. The MK7 Golf is a pretty nice package, and I'm sure you know that.

Car feels surprisingly high end. It's totally quiet and acceleration is sneaky fast up to about 40-50mph, which for this car is 90% of it's life. It feels about as fast as the MCS but with little drama, but the the speedo tells you its clearly faster. Tires are N-filled and low resistance, but car manages to handle aggressive turns surprisingly well. Traction accelerating is also fine in the dry, but in the wet you can light up the TC pretty easily.

Regen braking is pretty sweet. Haven't really tested brakes but they seem more than adequate.

Overall, it feels like a taste of the future. No warm up time, no brake in period, no guilt about turning on car just to move it 5 feet. The 1/2-mile drives to school are not going to harm car. You can back car into garage safely. All these typical concerns go away. It feels like exactly what we should own given our needs. That said, it does very little (nothing?) to scratch a performance itch. I'll figure out what to do on that front at some point. Probably nothing until spring 2017 at the earliest.

For now the car lives in the new, detached garage since that has my Tesla circuit (50A, 240V, NEMA 14-50 receptacle). I will wire a similar circuit to the front garage soon. Luckily electrical panel is just across the wall.

Overall, a very nice car and very cheap to own. Buyout is only $13k at lease end if we really like it.

Welcome to the EV era!

I've heard good things about the eGolf...

Edit: Just re-read that you have a '15... The lower-spec charger, the battery is only 24kW -- so a full charge still takes less than 6 hours. At 9 miles a day, that's still under an hour to plug in... Since you have the higher charger, that's 1/2 the charging time...

Yeah, well, it's still nice to have a better charger. Wife or I could take a job 15-20 miles away and still be ok. That is why we took the 10k mile/year lease - just in case. We almost went with the 7k/year lease.

He appears to have given us a pretty good deal on the leftover '15. Didn't feel like haggling. I just knew the numbers weren't far off from a base 2016, so we took it.

So it's pure electric, with no onboard generator?

Yes. It's a compliance car, like the Focus Electric.

There's an electric focus too? Heh

And electric versions of the Fiat 500, Kia Soul, Honda Fit, Toyota Rav4, Chevy Spark, Smart ForTwo, and Mercedes B-class. The Rav4 and MB have Tesla drive-trains too. The Rav4 and Fit are out of production though...

Honda leased (didn't sell any) Fit EVs in MY2014. Not since. Now that they're comi off lease, they're being leased again in some states. $0 down, $199/mo for 24 months. No mileage limit, free maintenance, etc. I check to see if any are available in MD (one of the few states) from time to time.

Interesting on the Fit re-lease. Wasn't the original lease about the same?

I've seen one Smart EV and occasionally see Foci Electrics around (one passed me this morning on the way to work…). But the other compliance cars aren't avail in AZ (we're not a CARB state -- and most are limited to CARB states).

Compliance cars are great as commuters -- but only as long as your normal daily commute is less than 40-50 miles. Most of them have an EPA rating of ~70-75 miles, which means real-world range of mid 60s, and cold weather range of maybe 50 miles if the battery is cold soaked. Didn't work for me, but could work for many.

There is (was?) a full electric Fusion also. It didn't sell well, so it might be history allready