First, a little background.
Before leasing my eGolf, I was all ready to buy and Audi eTron. For me, the primary motivator was the HOV sticker (still worthwhile in the Sacramento Area). The green stickers were rapidly drying up and the continual delays in release (Oct 23 became sometime any day now became sometime in Decemeber and etc.) mad me shift to EV. I did a lot of research to see if I would be able to survive cutting the cord and with the technology changing so quickly, I wanted to lease (my first ever lease). My commute is 50 miles round trip a day, so a 12,000 mile lease is cutting it close and this restriction meant I wouldn't take road trips with this car. The SO has a gas engine car that can be used for road trips, so an EV was a real possibility.
I looked at everything. Coming from a V8 Audi S5, I was used to a nice car and that immediately removed plastic feeling cars from the list. I also wanted four doors and my options were quickly limited to the BMW i3, the Mercedes B class, the Tesla and the eGolf. The Leaf didn't even make my long list. The tesla was just too expensive. Tesla's advertised price of $500 a month for a lease quickly because almost $1,100 as their math was real sketchy. They came up with the figure by subtracting the amount of money you would save on gas and other various fuzzy things. The real money that you would have to pay them each month was $1099. The i3 was a great driving car and had a lot of awesome features. Ultimately, the lack of vents to the rear and the 'I need to wear a bag over my head' design steered me away. The B class was just too mini van-ish, which left the eGolf. I leased the eGolf Premium and started my EV adventure.
I drive like an idiot. I fully admit it. 80 mph with the cruise control on, enjoying the HOV lane. As such, my driving figures are not what they could be. My driving ends up being about 15 miles of I-80 with HOV land and then stop and go traffic on business 80 for about 10 miles. Driving on bus 80 really helps the ol' mileage figures. I also have a free charger at work. For the first week or two, I would charge at both home and work. Then I switched it to only charge to 80% at home and 100% at work. Then I would only charge at work M-Th and at home Friday night. Now, I charge at work 100% of the time and not at all at home.
TLDR version, I have this little car pretty well figured out for me, now. I've taken it down to 3 miles range before, just to have it increase to 11 miles when I hit some traffic. On most days, I leave work with 100% charge and drive 25 miles home. Then I drive back in the next morning and when I pull into work, it usually says I have between 20-25 miles of range left. Again, that's driving as if I still owned a V8 car.
Hard numbers: 3029 miles, 78:30h of travel time, Average speed of 39 mph and 3.5 mil/kWH.
The most range anxiety I ever had was when I had to drive from my work to my son's school, then to his doctor's appointment, back to his school and back to work. The round trip was over 70 miles and during the middle of the day, there was no traffic on bus80, so I didn't get the boost that I normally did there. at roughly 20 miles, the car alerted me I did not have the range to make it home and asked if I would like to go to the nearest charging station. I put the car in Eco mode and rolled into the parking garage with 7 miles of range left.
I like the car. I don't love it, but never going to the gas station is nice, the acceleration is decent and the fit and finish is quite nice. The only things I miss on the car are a built in garage door opener and memory seats. My eyes get a little distracted by the pattern on the windshield for the defroster wires at night, but that's about it.
Before leasing my eGolf, I was all ready to buy and Audi eTron. For me, the primary motivator was the HOV sticker (still worthwhile in the Sacramento Area). The green stickers were rapidly drying up and the continual delays in release (Oct 23 became sometime any day now became sometime in Decemeber and etc.) mad me shift to EV. I did a lot of research to see if I would be able to survive cutting the cord and with the technology changing so quickly, I wanted to lease (my first ever lease). My commute is 50 miles round trip a day, so a 12,000 mile lease is cutting it close and this restriction meant I wouldn't take road trips with this car. The SO has a gas engine car that can be used for road trips, so an EV was a real possibility.
I looked at everything. Coming from a V8 Audi S5, I was used to a nice car and that immediately removed plastic feeling cars from the list. I also wanted four doors and my options were quickly limited to the BMW i3, the Mercedes B class, the Tesla and the eGolf. The Leaf didn't even make my long list. The tesla was just too expensive. Tesla's advertised price of $500 a month for a lease quickly because almost $1,100 as their math was real sketchy. They came up with the figure by subtracting the amount of money you would save on gas and other various fuzzy things. The real money that you would have to pay them each month was $1099. The i3 was a great driving car and had a lot of awesome features. Ultimately, the lack of vents to the rear and the 'I need to wear a bag over my head' design steered me away. The B class was just too mini van-ish, which left the eGolf. I leased the eGolf Premium and started my EV adventure.
I drive like an idiot. I fully admit it. 80 mph with the cruise control on, enjoying the HOV lane. As such, my driving figures are not what they could be. My driving ends up being about 15 miles of I-80 with HOV land and then stop and go traffic on business 80 for about 10 miles. Driving on bus 80 really helps the ol' mileage figures. I also have a free charger at work. For the first week or two, I would charge at both home and work. Then I switched it to only charge to 80% at home and 100% at work. Then I would only charge at work M-Th and at home Friday night. Now, I charge at work 100% of the time and not at all at home.
TLDR version, I have this little car pretty well figured out for me, now. I've taken it down to 3 miles range before, just to have it increase to 11 miles when I hit some traffic. On most days, I leave work with 100% charge and drive 25 miles home. Then I drive back in the next morning and when I pull into work, it usually says I have between 20-25 miles of range left. Again, that's driving as if I still owned a V8 car.
Hard numbers: 3029 miles, 78:30h of travel time, Average speed of 39 mph and 3.5 mil/kWH.
The most range anxiety I ever had was when I had to drive from my work to my son's school, then to his doctor's appointment, back to his school and back to work. The round trip was over 70 miles and during the middle of the day, there was no traffic on bus80, so I didn't get the boost that I normally did there. at roughly 20 miles, the car alerted me I did not have the range to make it home and asked if I would like to go to the nearest charging station. I put the car in Eco mode and rolled into the parking garage with 7 miles of range left.
I like the car. I don't love it, but never going to the gas station is nice, the acceleration is decent and the fit and finish is quite nice. The only things I miss on the car are a built in garage door opener and memory seats. My eyes get a little distracted by the pattern on the windshield for the defroster wires at night, but that's about it.
