Something Isn't Right

Saturday 29th November 2014

Hmmm, Hmmm, Hmmm, something just isn’t right!

I was so excited to go and test drive the VW e-Golf, it was going to be great, especially as the VW e-UP was so brilliant. The two were bound to be similar – right? Made by the same company so there were bound to be similarities.

So why after test driving the e-Golf, the only thing I have to say is Hmmm?

We arrived at the VW dealer and we were met by the ‘knowledgable sales person’. He is knowledgeable because he has been on the course for the VW electric cars. It’s good that VW offer training to the sales guys, let’s hope he knows something.

He started with, ‘Electric cars are not new to VW, they have been making them since the 1970’s!’

Okay, moving on…

We took a look around the car, it looked really nice, like a VW Golf, obviously! But, it was a white one – you cannot be serious!!!!! It was definitely European VW Golfness, it was what we would have expected from VW. It was black inside, which was nice and had black accents, also nice. There were touches of blue here and there which apparently let us know it was electric – I just thought it looked nice! The look and feel of the car was great.

The sales guy was desperately trying to tell us everything he could. It sounded like he might have just skimmed his notes before we arrived and memorised the lines – he had verbal diarrhoea.

Can we test drive the car now? The sales guy needed to drive the car first – why, I do not know. But, anyway, he drove it out of the car park and put his foot down to show off the ‘torque’, but oh dear that is not how to show off an Electric Car, especially when you then put the brakes on, then put your foot down on the accelerator again. It was too herky, jerky and all I could think was, ‘Is this car going to be sick making?’

Fortunately, after only a few feet of that driving, he pulled over to let my side kick drive. I whispered to my side kick to please drive better than that.

After another round of verbal diarrhoea over the this and the that of how everything worked – I mean seriously, please will you stop talking? We wound the regen up to the max and set off. Once out on the main road, my side kick put his foot down and the car started to pick up speed, it was in no hurry though and moved along in its own time. The car rode nicely, there was no sicky feelings so that was very good, thank goodness that was just the sales guys dodgy driving. As we approached some traffic lights, at red, my side kick took his foot off the accelerator expecting the car to slow down – oh dear, hardly any regen and he found himself having to use the brakes. Hang on, what happened to the max regen that we had selected? The sales guy couldn’t offer an explanation.

More driving and still not much regen, well this was kind of worrying. After driving the e-UP which had a super regen mode, I would have expected the same of the e-Golf. It gave that impression but didn’t appear to offer it. I like the car but have to say that the lack of regen is a major negative. We have been super spoilt by the amazing regen of the MINI E, the ActiveE, and now the i3, although it doesn’t have quite as much as the ActiveE did, but it’s still up there.

Oh and then there was a weird noise that was coming from somewhere in the car. Oh no, they have one of those annoying pedestrian warning noise making thingys. When will they learn that the car is not that quiet and it will make no difference to the majority of peds these days as they just aren’t concentrating as they are often wearing headphones or texting, or both.

The majority of the journey home after test driving the VW e-Golf was Hmmm, Hmmm, Hmmm. I could not think of any words to say. The VW e-Golf was just Hmmm. And I so wanted to really, really like it. I am a little disappointed but at least it didn’t make me sick!!

If they have been making electric cars since the 1970’s then why didn’t they make a car that electric car drivers want to drive? Give me loads of regen, no creep and no weird noise makers.