Any surprises after switching to EV?

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renzo

***
Joined
Jan 8, 2019
Messages
9
Have you guys had any issues come up that you didn't consider before switching to an EV?

Anything from charging to highway driving?

One question that comes to mind is, how much is range affected when driving at highway speeds (60+) ?

Anything I should look out for when shopping for a used eGolf?

Thanks in advance.
 
renzo said:
One question that comes to mind is, how much is range affected when driving at highway speeds (60+) ?

Assume a maximum of 4 miles/kWh range when traveling at freeway speeds.
 
My only real surprise has been with how little I've ended up being concerned about charging and charging speed.

Charging is way easier and less of an issue than I expected given what I use the car for (mostly local driving and commuting). I think I went into things with an "ICE mind" about refueling and thought of charging in the same way: that I'd be running the battery down to a quarter charge or lower and then charging up. Instead, I put in a level 2 charger on my house, and I start every day with a full "fuel tank" and never have to worry about it.

For non-EV owners, one of their first questions always seems to be "how long does it take to charge?" (right after "What's the range?"), I think because most people don't realize that most charging is done at home or at work. They think of EVs only within their "ICE mind" of "what if I'm running out of gas and I can't find a gas station?" and "I don't want to go to a gas station and wait around for 3 hours for my car to fuel up" instead of within the "EV mind," which is more akin to how we think of charging our phones or other portable electronic devices: you do it when you've got a chance, mostly overnight or at work.

I've gotten to the point now where my not-entirely-serious-but-not-entirely-joking answer to the "how long does it take to charge?" question is: 10 seconds (5 seconds to plug in at night and 5 seconds to unplug in the morning).

Of course, this doesn't really account for road trips, which is a whole different use case for EVs and for me accounts for less than 5% of my trips. But still, I did go into EV ownership with a lot of trepidation about charging, which turned out to be completely a non-issue. Now, every time I drive past a gas station, I just think about how I'll never have to waste my time there with this car.
 
2016golfse said:
Assume a maximum of 4 miles/kWh range when traveling at freeway speeds.

In ideal conditions (not too cold, not too hot, not raining, not too windy, not too hilly)
 
Surprises...

1. My electric bill went up, and it put me in a higher price per kWh bracket due to increased electricity consumption.

2. Had electrical brown outs one summer with Electricity utility provider, and couldn't charge, a few times during heat spells.

3. I've had no automotive service bills for maintenance in 3.5 years with any VW dealership.

4. The motor torque will eat your front tires alive, if you use it below about 35 to 40 mph with jack rabbit starts off of a stop or slow roll.

5. The car is so quiet, with no internal combustion motor running, that any minute noises in the cab, if they develop, or even new normal sounds associated with electric cars, will drive you crazy, trying to fix them, when they are normal sounds. Heat pump and pedestrian growler to warn pedestrians comes to mind.

6. If you break a part on an electric car, plan on it being outrageously expensive to fix or repair. Dealerships aren't making any money on servicing electric cars, so when you do break something, the markup and overhead on electric car parts and service is sky high, they are going to gouge you but good on it.

7. It's hard to find knowledgeable VW Master techs that know how to work on e-Golfs, unless you live in a location where there already are e-Golfs everywhere, and the techs get a lot of exposure to fixing e-Golfs. Think Nor Cal in and around San Jose and Silicone Valley. We are talking about maybe 6000 to 8000 e-Golfs being sold per year, total, in all of the USA. That's not many cars, overall, to get good at servicing them, when something mysterious breaks on them.
 
manybees said:
10 seconds (5 seconds to plug in at night and 5 seconds to unplug in the morning.

I'm getting that same question from everybody. Absconding this answer...

4mpkW on the interstate is what I am seeing too. While on backroads of New England, setting the cruise control with ReGen3 & adjusting the cruise settings with the speed adjustment on the steering wheel I saw it go higher. So far...

It is a car that you have to learn/invest time into its limitations if you are coming down from an the ICE range independence. Having owned so many vehicles that have 300-400 mile ranges per tank & the convenience of the 15 minute fill up. The challenge for me is to adjust my habits, however I am intrigued to give it a go. I see it as a challenge.

Ask me in a year...
 
JoulesThief said:
6. If you break a part on an electric car, plan on it being outrageously expensive to fix or repair.
Are there any parts that are fragile or are known to break easily? The vibe I get is that it's a pretty robust car.
 
renzo said:
JoulesThief said:
6. If you break a part on an electric car, plan on it being outrageously expensive to fix or repair.
Are there any parts that are fragile or are known to break easily? The vibe I get is that it's a pretty robust car.

It's at least as robust as the ICE Golf for the parts they share. I think my biggest (irrational?) fear could be while using public charging someone could come along and give the plug handle a swift kick/jolt. The damage may not be immediately obvious, but replacing a broken charge port is not trivial.

I'm not sure why someone might do this, but why do some people driving lifted trucks park in Tesla Supercharger spots? People are weird sometimes...
 
Spektre said:
renzo said:
JoulesThief said:
6. If you break a part on an electric car, plan on it being outrageously expensive to fix or repair.
Are there any parts that are fragile or are known to break easily? The vibe I get is that it's a pretty robust car.

It's at least as robust as the ICE Golf for the parts they share. I think my biggest (irrational?) fear could be while using public charging someone could come along and give the plug handle a swift kick/jolt. The damage may not be immediately obvious, but replacing a broken charge port is not trivial.

I'm not sure why someone might do this, but why do some people driving lifted trucks park in Tesla Supercharger spots? People are weird sometimes...

/\ This... VW has a locking charge port. If you go and hit up free electrical charging ports, some other mooch, sooner or later, will come along, and try to yank the locked charge handle in your VW port, or start beating on it or who knows what, to get it free, so they can start charging for free.

A solution to that is either to be near your car at all times at a free charging spot, or charge up at home all the time, or pay for your electricity ate a public charging EVSE location.

IMHO, it's the freebie EVSE spots that cause the most problems. I've yet to see a pile up of EVSE's where you pay to recharge, or trying to steal the handle. Unless it's a quick charger, near a major freeway. If you're filling up at a DCFC station, stay with your car, and stop charging at 80%, if someone else is waiting to use the DCFC station. That's common courtesy. It's a fill up station, not a parking lot to recharge while you multi task. People seem to forget that, especially the Chevy Volt crowd, which recharge as slow as molasses, it's a waste they are hooked up to a 30 amp EVSE unit when I doubt they can even handle 10 amps current. You wouldn't drive 25 MPH in a 70 MPH zone, you'd be going too slow. Same with an EVSE charge station. If it's 30 amps, at least try to recharge at 30 amps or close to it., not 10 or 12 amps. If your charger is limiting you, stay out of the way, you're wasting everyone else's time, hogging the station, that might really need the 30 amp charge rate.
 
Spektre said:
I'm not sure why someone might do this, but why do some people driving lifted trucks park in Tesla Supercharger spots? People are weird sometimes...

Not weird, just douche-y. It's a protest.

I see a lifted truck and my brain immediately thinks 'ah, fragile ego'. The world is changing on them ... becoming more cognizant of our impact on the environment, mostly ... and there's little they can do about it. But they can stick a finger in your eye and own the libs, as it were.

--Chris
 
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