What is a Volkswagen e-Golf like after 5 years and 76,000 miles

Hi, it's Matt here from Go Green Autos. So I've just brought in this Volkswagen e-Golf. It's the first e-Golf I've had in, however I didn't buy this one to retail out, I brought this one to keep. So this is a 2015 car, it's actually done 76,000 miles, which is a lot for one of these. Obviously it wouldn't be if it's a petrol or diesel Golf at this age, but the electric cars generally are much lower mileage. We do actually favour higher mileage EVs for our own cars, so the car that this one is replacing is a BMW i3 that my partner drives and that's actually done a hundred and twenty six thousand miles, so it's probably the highest mileage i3 in the country. And that will be on the website soon because obviously I'll be selling that one. But my own car I drive is a three-year-old Ioniq and that's done 76,000 miles. The reason why I buy high mileage EVs is because the price of cars or price of EVs is dictated by age and mileage, just like it is with petrol and diesel cars. But obviously petrol and diesel cars mileage reflects wear and tear on the mechanical components, but obviously with an electric car they don't have so much wear and tear. The motor is just one moving part. However with an EV battery packs are much better on high mileage cars than they are on low mileage cars. So for example on my Ioniq at 76,000 miles the battery is still at 100%. On the BMW i3 at 126,000 miles it's still as good as new. You can't actually measure battery condition. And it's the same on this. This has done 76,000 miles. It's not possible to measure the state of health because the BMS doesn't report it. However as we'll see in a minute the range on this is absolutely no different and hasn't deteriorated at all. The reason for making this video is show you how well this e-Golf has done that mileage and what the wear and tear is like. Suspension wise all perfectly fine. There's no knocking or any wear or any noticeable wear yet. And apart from a bit of visual wear and tear we've got a bit of curbing on the wheels and a few minor scratches in the paint. It's just in really nice condition. The weak point on these though is seat wear. So this did have some seat covers fitted. These have got quite high bolsters on the seat and as you can see there it has started wearing away. The foam is fine underneath but the fabric has started wearing so I am going to have to retrim this driver's seat. But all the other seats are fine and actually the bolsters on the driver's seat perfectly fine as well. So what everyone's going to want to know is what the battery state of health is like. But the reality is the battery packs in EVs will more than last the life of the vehicle. And the reality is high mileage cars have better battery packs than low mileage cars. So batteries do deteriorate. They will lose a little bit of capacity every year but the majority of degradation on a battery pack happens when the battery is left at 100% and not drained and therefore the car is not used. And that's typically what you get on high mileage cars. They get plugged in at night, charged 100% and maybe don't get used for the next day. Whereas a high mileage car has probably been used every single day for commuting and the battery gets cycled and that's what they like. So I've had quite a lot of high mileage cars and as I've shown in this video, our BMW i3 is probably one of the highest mileage i3s around, if not the highest. And the battery is absolutely fine on that. On this one, if I just started up here, I have just charged this and the estimated range is 105 miles. Obviously that doesn't really mean anything because range is based on economy. But I was driving this quite a bit yesterday and I think I averaged 4.1 miles per kilowatt hour. Let's have a look. I'm still getting used to the menu systems on this car. There we go. Average consumption 4.1 miles per kilowatt hour. So yeah, the the figures all stand up that this car just hasn't really lost any significant capacity in the battery yet. And that's what I find on many EVs. However, obviously with a lot of miles you're going to get some wear and tear. Like on this car, it's on the driver's seat and on cars that have done higher mileage you will have a bit of wear and tear on the suspension. But the bit that everyone worries about is the battery, because that's obviously the the most expensive component in the car. But that's the thing you've got to worry about the least. And as I've seen time and time again, the more miles the car has done generally, the better that battery pack is than an equivalent low mileage car of the same year. So next I'll just briefly give you my opinion of the e-Golf, because this is the first time I've had one of these in. And I'm in the fortunate position where I drive all types of electric cars all the time. If you watch the YouTube videos and the reviews, people's general comments about the e-Golf is they are very fast, the front wheels spin very easily, but they're quite hard and got a very hard and harsh suspension setup. However, I found none of those true really. True, the wheels do spin easily if you stick your foot down. But I think a lot of the viewers are coming into an EV for the first time, and all electric cars are fast, or feel fast, because you've got instant torque and that sort of 0-30 is very quick. 0-60 is about the same as a reasonably performance petrol or diesel. But of course you get all the torque very low down, so they just feel a lot more nippy. But this isn't hugely fast. It's good enough, of course, and it's fun, but actually my Ioniq, which if you watch the reviews, people generally say those are pretty slow. The Ioniq is slightly faster than this, slightly better 0-60 and slightly more power, and certainly feels just as sprightly and feels about the same. So it's strange that what people's view is the Ioniq is a slow car, and it's certainly not. And as far as suspension setup, I haven't found this hard at all. It's a little bit harder than some of the others, but certainly a BMW i3 is much, much harder suspension and a more uncomfortable ride. So I think the general view that this is quite harsh is obviously comparing it to a petrol or diesel Golf, but compared to other EVs it's not really an issue at all. So styling, personally I find these a little bit dull, but then I do find all German cars with Audis and Volkswagens a little bit dull. They're just a bit bland, but I'm the minority. Other people absolutely love these, and I've seen it myself. I've only had this in the workshop for two days, and quite a few people have already commented. I know we're in lockdown, but I've got the doors open and people are walking past, and I've had many comments saying, nice car mate. Of course they don't know it's electric, they look at that and think it's a GTI, but I've had more comments on this than I've had on other cars. The only other times where people will make an effort and come up and comment is maybe when I've got a Tesla in. So people certainly do really like the look of these cars, but personally I don't really see it. These have a 24 kilowatt hour battery pack and usable space of something like 22 kilowatt hours. So in the EV world what you're going to compare this with is a 22 kilowatt hour Zoe, a 24 kilowatt hour Leaf, or the original BMW i3 with a 22 kilowatt hour battery pack. And actually that the i3 is going to be its direct competitor because they're both a premium brand, similar sort of build quality and feel. And that's indeed what Mel is coming from and swapping into this. And price-wise these do sit very much in the same price band as a BMW i3. Obviously Zoe's are quite a bit cheaper, but majority of 22 kilowatt hours Zoe's have leased battery packs. Leafs are probably the cheapest of the bunch, but this car's worth about, with this mileage, it's worth about £12,250 which is about the same as what a BMW i3 would be worth. About the two, personally I think I would probably stick with the i3. I think the i3 is just a cleverer design. It's obviously a carbon fibre body and it's just, the i3 shouts I'm an electric car, whereas this doesn't. But maybe that's what people like. Most people would look at that and just wouldn't know that was electric. The only sign that that's electric really is the different flat alloy wheels. But obviously, as I said, Volkswagen Golfs have a bit of credibility to them and a bit of desirability that other cars just don't have. But I think the BMW i3 does as well. Charging speeds on these aren't great. That's one thing that's not particularly good about them. So it's got a type 2 AC charging port and it charges at 3.5 kilowatts, which for us is perfectly fine because all the charging is going to be at night and whether it's a 3 kilowatt or 7 kilowatt doesn't make a difference because it will always be charged by the morning. But other electric vehicles at this age all have 7 kilowatt chargers, so I just don't know why they didn't make it 7 kilowatt standard. And the CCS connector here I think is at 44 or 46 kilowatt, I can't quite remember, which is fine but it's not quite at the 50 kilowatt that the charger you're going to plug into can support. But the thing I do like is you've got switches here that you can override your charge timer and that just makes so much more sense that it's put in the charge port. So on most cars that button to override a scheduled charge time is down here on the dash and indeed on the Hyundai IONIQ it's down here with the buttons you release the charge port. So in reality what happens is you push the button to open the charge port, you've got to walk all the way around to this side of the car because the charge port is on this side of the car, plug in your charging cable, then you walk all the way back to then push that button to disable the scheduled time, or scheduled timer should I say, whereas on here we do it all at the charge port and push the button. So that just makes so much more sense but I've never seen this arrangement in other electric cars. I will probably run this car for six months or so, it depends what comes up in the future. Obviously because I retail electric cars I'm in that fortunate position where I can swap and change the cars as much as I like. So sometime next week I'll be making some videos of our BMW i3 and that will be up on the site soon for sale. So if you've liked this video please do click the thumbs up button on YouTube, that really does help other people find the channel, and subscribe and hit that like button if you want to see more EV related videos.