In the wake of its diesel emission scandal, Volkswagen proclaimed its destiny as tomorrow’s top dog of electric automobiles. However, its e-Golf never really felt like the future. It felt like the past with an electric motor wedged inside — a strategy many companies took while dipping a toe in the EV pool. The result was a green vehicle with an acceptable, but not very impressive, range.
Well, today at the Los Angeles Auto Show, VW announced that it has made the e-Golf more competitive by extending its legs and broadening its horizons.
The 2017 Volkswagen e-Golf receives a new lithium-ion battery and a capacity increase from 24.2 kilowatt-hours to 35.8 kWh.
That bigger battery pack is estimated to bring the range up from the current e-Golf’s 83-mile limit to 124 miles. That’s a nearly 50 percent improvement. Still, it’s less than what you can expect to get from any base model Tesla or Chevrolet’s Bolt. Those vehicles offer over 200 miles of range, and the Bolt does it at only a slightly higher price point.
However, the new e-Golf does meet or surpass the range of many other EVs, such as the Hyundai Ioniq, Nissan Leaf, Ford Focus Electric and BMW i3. (VW has plans for a very competitive vehicle before the end of the decade.)
Range counts for something, but so does power — and the new e-Golf offers more of both. VW has boosted the electric power available for acceleration, so output rises by 19 horsepower to 134 hp, and torque rises to 214 lb-ft.
Volkswagen says the added juice means runs from zero to 60 mph occur a second faster than than in the previous e-Golf. Now, it’s 9.6 seconds, with a top speed of 93 mph. While not face-melting levels of speed, it should get a person through traffic safely.
Charging that bigger battery is a 7.2 kilowatt charger that’s standard on the SE and SEL Premium trims. VW says the standard charger allows the battery to be fully powered in under six hours at a traditional charging station. However, there is an optional DC fast-charging port that can get the car to 80 percent in under an hour — if paired with a fast-charging station.
Visual changes to the 2017 e-Golf include some very subtle updates to the overall styling. You’d probably never guess, but the bumpers and front fenders are entirely new. The car also gets new LED lights all around and some accenting details around the grille that are specific to the EV.
The interior gets an optional 9.2 inch touch screen and the driver assists found on 2017 internal combustion Golfs. However, the assists are only available on the SEL Premium model. The features include blind-sport monitoring, adaptive cruise control, pedestrian detection, forward-collision warning with automatic emergency braking, and parking assist.
The 2017 Volkswagen e-Golf will hit select dealerships in EV-friendly states early next year.
[Images: Volkswagen]
134hp and a 93mph top speed? Something doesn’t jive here.
Gearing. Electric motors don’t develop max horsepower at max rpm (in fact, they get quite weak at high rpm) and they usually use a one-speed transmission when not accompanied by gas engines.
Electric cars, even Teslas, aren’t very quick at seriously extralegal speeds.
Correct, ever electric motor has the same torque and power curve shape. Torque is a straight line with the peak at 0rpm with a straight line leading to 0 torque at the motor’s free speed. The power curve is a curve, pretty much a half sine wave with the peak at 1/2 the free speed and zero power at 0 rpm and the free speed.
I’m guessing cars use DC motors, if so here is the data http://lancet.mit.edu/motors/motors3.html at the bottom is the curve you are looking for.
That’s a logical assumption, but it’s incorrect, I can’t think of one that uses a DC motor.
Well it looks like I’m going to have to brush up on my electric car knowledge. ps you can go to any ac motor brand (baldor.com) pick a motor and look up their data, it will show the same sort of curve.
http://www.electrotechnik.net/2014/09/speed-torque-curve-of-induction-motor.html
http://i.imgur.com/X7RVCdV.png
The curves look a bit different to me. They might be software limiting the torque on the Tesla to make it more predictable.
The Dual-motor ones are a bit different as the two motors have different top speeds so they can have performance and efficiency over a broader range of speeds. It’s like a two-speed gearbox except with amazing AWD included.
Maybe. My former 12 Leaf had 107 HP and could do 90+. But at top speed, its power was reduced from the maximum of 80 kW to maybe 60 kW (can’t recall now), presumably to protect the power module.
So maybe VW also reduces power delivery when the power module get too hot, as it would at very high, sustained speeds.
This thermal protection issue plagues Teslas running on the Nürburgring, and it’s something Porsche promises to remedy in its upcoming Mission E car.
That’s a good point about the heat load. 100kW is a lot of juice for a battery to sustain! (134hp just happens to be exactly 100kW, nice round number, hmmm what a coincidence.)
Battery packs spread over the bottom of the vehicle the way Tesla (and now the Bolt) is the way to go. How adaptable is the MQB platform that the Golf rides on is to do this?
If VW is going to get serious about having an EV portfolio, they’ll need to become a 50-state seller of them.
At the moment, the e-Golf is only available in a few states, selling about 320 units per month.
IIRC, they recently released the e-Golf for sale in all states. Someone feel free to correct me on that, but I could swear I read that in the past few weeks.
Their web site still says “The e-Golf will be available only at participating dealers in California, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington D.C.”
Maybe they’ll release it into some red states for a change?
Not likely. The greenies here is Oregon swoon for the Prius and Leaf. Strictly a blue state market.
A 124 mile range is pathetic (so is a 200 mile range).
Why do these EV manufacturers insist on embarrassing themselves by launching such half-baked crappy vehicles, mocking the very concept and viability of EVs in the process?
OK, let’s say 200 miles is pathetic but 400 miles is not pathetic. The difference in battery capacity is approximately one of the Tesla batteries which, by the way, cost north of $10,000 (not to mention the weight and space sacrifice if you were to add that to a car). Not sure the market will stand that cost:benefit but you’re welcome to go into business for yourself and make a lot of money proving that the current players got it wrong.
A cost-benefit analysis would suggest that EVs are pointless, and that ICE-powered cars are better choices.
Vehicle purchases consist of more than just cost-benefit analysis, but you already know that.
A cost-benefit analysis would suggest that your repetitive, content-free EV comments add little to TTAC, and that readers should skip past them to reach other comments for maximum reading utility.
Nice CGI backgrounds on the VW-supplied pictures. They look like architectural renderings.
The photo-shopped seagulls in the first picture have the sizes all wrong – a couple of them approach pterodactyl size, given the distance and the size of the car.
Note the texture of the road in the first picture, and the bricks and greenery on the building wall in the second picture.
In the first picture, the photographer would have to be in a car just in front of the VW, and in a lane to the driver’s left. He would have gone right through that blurry light pole just before taking this picture.
Their photography is about as honest as their emission testing results.