bizzle said:Not in AZ, but half hour west of Yuma in Imperial County.
My wife and I are curious about the battery degradation, as well. Looks like you and I are the guinee pigs
miimura said:The GOM is not a good indicator of degradation. If you really care about degradation, you should regularly calculate the car's usable battery capacity. The best way to do this is to start from 100% charge and drive it to less than half full. Then use the Since Charge stats to calculate the usable capacity. Here's an example with made-up figures:
Since Charge:
50 miles / 4.5 mi/kWh = 11.11 kWh used
11.11 kWh / 50% SOC used = 22.22 kWh total usable capacity
There is some uncertainty (noise) in this calculation due to the whole number of miles displayed on the screen and your guess at the battery % from the small gauge, but over time you should see a trend in this capacity figure.
bizzle said:Luckily I haven't experienced that even with ambient temps above 120. It's interesting that the batteries are staying below the ambient temp even while driving on the freeway at 70mph.
bizzle said:I have a feeling it's the regenerative features that shut down and not the acceleration. I didn't notice until recently that when I am in B mode or trying to brake the car does not slow down as much as when the weather is more mild. It feels like the battery is full even when the gauge is showing half full.
What about the guy from Arizona? Wondering what he's experiencing this summer. Not sure if their past couple weeks have been as harsh as ours have out here in the SoCal desert.
Spektre said:My problem has been charging the car at home in the evening. Most days I get home between 4 and 5 pm - it's still over 100F in my garage, and my TOU energy plan rates are still in the high range, so I wait to plug in the car until 7pm. It seems like the e-Golf takes a long time to cool off, and really doesn't like to charge when it's hot.
I've been using the included EVSE (Clipper Creek 15A) and I'm not able to achieve a full charge in those 11 hours until I leave the next morning. I'm in the process of acquiring a level 2 EVSE (thinking the GE from Home Depot), and hopefully that will help with the situation.
gvblake22 said:Looks like it's been a while since this thread had any activity. Any of you AZ owners have any updates to give? I'm interested to know if you needed any special service and if there is a shop that was able to do the work.
I've contacted two dealerships in the Phoenix area and both said they do not have any technicians certified for the e-Golf and did not indicate that they would be willing to do work on it.JoulesThief said:gvblake22 said:Looks like it's been a while since this thread had any activity. Any of you AZ owners have any updates to give? I'm interested to know if you needed any special service and if there is a shop that was able to do the work.
Any VW dealership should be able to do the work.
The 2018 e-Golf is going to be sold in 50 states. There will be technicians trained to service it. Just don't break down between now and when the technicians get training. There's a lot more than 2 VW dealerships in the Phoenix area, keep searching.gvblake22 said:I've contacted two dealerships in the Phoenix area and both said they do not have any technicians certified for the e-Golf and did not indicate that they would be willing to do work on it.JoulesThief said:gvblake22 said:Looks like it's been a while since this thread had any activity. Any of you AZ owners have any updates to give? I'm interested to know if you needed any special service and if there is a shop that was able to do the work.
Any VW dealership should be able to do the work.
gvblake22 said:I've contacted two dealerships in the Phoenix area and both said they do not have any technicians certified for the e-Golf and did not indicate that they would be willing to do work on it.JoulesThief said:gvblake22 said:Looks like it's been a while since this thread had any activity. Any of you AZ owners have any updates to give? I'm interested to know if you needed any special service and if there is a shop that was able to do the work.
Any VW dealership should be able to do the work.
That would be great news! Thanks. Maybe I'll just hold off until the 2018 model year so everything is officially official. Plus that will give the new Leaf time to hit.JoulesThief said:The 2018 e-Golf is going to be sold in 50 states.
I appreciate your advice, it's helpful to keep my expectations grounded (no pun intended).JoulesThief said:Concept number 1 is that it's an urban vehicle, really designed to be at it's best when driven at reasonable speeds ( 45 mph or under) on city surface streets. What it is NOT is an autobahn cruiser, freeway speed demon, or interstate cruiser. Understand it has a lot of limitations... a lot, compared to a hydrocarbon powered form of transportation. Very low energy density in batteries, for amount of weight you are hauling around. So you just need to do all you can to conserve energy, by being a very efficient driver, not wasting kinetic energy slowing down or braking, conserving all your momentum.
Thanks for the info, Spektre. I'm interested in the new 35.8-kWh battery model as I think the range will suit my lifestyle much better than the 24.2-kWh. I live in south Scottsdale and drive to work in downtown Chandler; 40 miles round trip Mon-Fri with about 75% on the freeway. I'll contact VW North Scottsdale about service.Spektre said:I got the same pushback when I first brought the car to AZ last June. I used the fact that I was bringing the car in to have Federal Recall fixed and that VW had an obligation to fix it. After contacting VW Customer Care, the service department miraculously changed its tune and scheduled me an appointment immediately. They actually had to bring in a tech from California to do the service.
I was told that it would not be a problem in the future, and that they would be training their techs to service EVs. This was at VW North Scottsdale.
BTW, aside from the range thing, this is my favorite car I've ever owned, and I've owned way more than I should have over the years. I'm going to drive this one into the ground and replace it with another electric VW (so I can keep my AZ Alternate Fuel plate too: "VLTSWGN")
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