- The unique Volkswagen e-Golf had a 20-kilowatt-hour (usable) battery
- It was later up to date with a much bigger battery.
- The primary iteration of the EV had an EPA-estimated vary of 83 miles.
The Volkswagen e-Golf is way from what we’d name a do-it-all electrical automobile. Debuting again in 2014, it was VW’s try at making a mainstream EV at a time when the first-generation Nissan Leaf was the most effective value-for-money proposition in the marketplace.
The e-Golf had a 24.2-kilowatt-hour (complete) battery pack with out lively thermal administration, which is tiny by right this moment’s requirements. In accordance with the EPA, the 2015 Volkswagen e-Golf had an estimated vary of 83 miles, so that you’d anticipate a decade-old EV with out lively cooling or heating to be virtually unusable, particularly within the winter.
Properly, it will depend on what your expectations are. As you’ll see within the Bjorn Nyland video embedded beneath, the unique e-Golf can nonetheless be utilized in right this moment’s situations, even in freezing temperatures, so long as you’re effective with stopping for a top-up each hour or so.
Nyland, who’s a prolific EV tester, purchased this explicit 2014 e-Golf for 40,000 Norwegian Krone, which is about $3,500. That’s a cut price whichever manner you take a look at it, and it’s even higher when you get a glimpse of the odometer as a result of the automobile has simply 85,750 miles (138,000 kilometers).
However what concerning the vary? The check began with a roughly 88% state of cost and an ambient temperature of 12.2 levels Fahrenheit (-11 Celsius). The automobile estimated a variety of simply 51 miles (82 km), so not nice.
After roughly 32 miles traveled on the freeway at about 56 mph (90 kph), the driving force obtained chilly toes and left the freeway as a result of he feared he wouldn’t make it to the primary out there charger. On nation roads, issues improved barely and Nyland reached a DC quick charger safely.
He had pushed 52 miles (84 km) and the automobile’s instrument cluster estimated it may nonetheless go about 7 miles (11 km). The journey took one hour and 20 minutes with a mean pace of 39 mph (63 kph) and a mean power consumption of three.4 miles/ kWh (17.9 kWh/100 km), which is respectable even by fashionable EV requirements. In accordance with the DC quick charger, the automobile nonetheless had 10% left within the battery.
So, how unhealthy is the degradation based mostly on this brief journey? As per Nyland’s calculations, the automobile nonetheless has a usable battery capability of 16.7 kWh. When it was new, it had 20 kWh usable. In 2023, one other degradation check was carried out on the identical automobile and it revealed a usable capability of 17.7 kWh.
In percentages, this explicit e-Golf has retained 83.5% of its unique capability, so not unhealthy, contemplating it doesn’t have an actively cooled battery pack. That stated, its capability was low to start with, and with degradation, the vary solely will get worse.
For simply $3,500, it’s fairly a decent outcome. However what’s your tackle this? Tell us within the feedback beneath.
