I saw my first e-Golf up close, in the Wild, while charging.

[JoulesThief]

While waiting for the city to inspect my Nema 14-50 outlet install in the garage, I had to make a public charger run to recharge the e-Golf on Sunday, so a trip to a Whole Foods was in order to accomplish this. While there, an exact copy, white with tan interior 2015 e-Golf SEL clone pulled up next to the other charge handle, and plugged in while going grocery shopping.

It's taken almost a month for this to happen... but there are a few of these e-Golfs running around, and showing up, slowly but surely VW is selling them. Talked to the owner, they leased it in March and have I thought she said 19000 miles on it already, by November 1st? Seems crazy, like maybe why didn't they buy a TDI instead?

Handicapped lady parked a little close, no way for me to get into my own car.

 

[DasCC]

While waiting for the city to inspect my Nema 14-50 outlet install in the garage, I had to make a public charger run to recharge the e-Golf on Sunday, so a trip to a Whole Foods was in order to accomplish this. While there, an exact copy, white with tan interior 2015 e-Golf SEL clone pulled up next to the other charge handle, and plugged in while going grocery shopping.

It's taken almost a month for this to happen... but there are a few of these e-Golfs running around, and showing up, slowly but surely VW is selling them. Talked to the owner, they leased it in March and have I thought she said 19000 miles on it already, by November 1st? Seems crazy, like maybe why didn't they buy a TDI instead?

Is that a city specific thing? I haven't had my Nema 6-50 inspected... idk the difference between that and a 14-50 though.

The only cars I ever see charging are Leafs.

 

[JoulesThief]

While waiting for the city to inspect my Nema 14-50 outlet install in the garage, I had to make a public charger run to recharge the e-Golf on Sunday, so a trip to a Whole Foods was in order to accomplish this. While there, an exact copy, white with tan interior 2015 e-Golf SEL clone pulled up next to the other charge handle, and plugged in while going grocery shopping.

It's taken almost a month for this to happen... but there are a few of these e-Golfs running around, and showing up, slowly but surely VW is selling them. Talked to the owner, they leased it in March and have I thought she said 19000 miles on it already, by November 1st? Seems crazy, like maybe why didn't they buy a TDI instead?

Is that a city specific thing? I haven't had my Nema 6-50 inspected... idk the difference between that and a 14-50 though.

The only cars I ever see charging are Leafs.

All I can say is this... NB romex in 8 gauge can get hot, it's another matter if you run conduit and individual 8 gauge wires. Personally, if it were me, I'd run 6 gauge, pulled through conduit, to perhaps put heat issues and fires at bay, or at the circuit breaker, instead of inside my walls. I want the full 244V at the 14-50 Nema outlet, no losses or voltage drop on a large continuous high amp heavy consumer like an EVSE... Heat being generated by wire is lost efficiency, along with voltage droppage. Also, no sharp bends in doing the wiring, either.

A 6-50 is two 120 legs, and a ground wire, there is no neutral wire, no potential for 120V. A 14-50 Nema is also known as an RV outlet, is 4 wire, 120 legs, a neutral ( to make 120) and a ground wire. 50 amp potential per line.

With a 14-50 plug on your EVSE charger box, you can always pay a bit of money and recharge at almost any RV park, if you get in a pinch, which is quite handy if you have the 7.2KWH deluxe charger on board instead of the dirt cheap, slow as molasses 3.6kwh charger. Rather a nice option if you are out in the sticks and need a charge, and find yourself near an RV park., It gives you options.

240V residential at 30 amps and 7.2kw charger is the fastest level 2 charge rate that I have observed, so far, at the full 7.2Kw, versus 6.0 or 6.3KW that you get with 30 amps at 208V commercial charger outlets. That 240V is worth about 15 to 20% in savings of time over 208V, important if you might be doing a lot of miles and a couple of level 2 charges in a day, level 3 is hard to find in the SAE CCM handles here in So Cal, or in remote areas. Remote areas are where you can find the RV parks to charge at, instead.

 

[miimura]

@JoulesThief - most of what you're saying is right on but you're making a glaring mistake with kWh units. kWh is a unit of energy - as in, "my e-Golf battery can store 24kWh of energy" or "my utility billed me for 500kWh of energy last month". The charger in the car is either 3.6 or 7.2kW, a measure of power. I just wanted to point that out so that your otherwise excellent post wouldn't confuse people.

 

[JoulesThief]

@JoulesThief - most of what you're saying is right on but you're making a glaring mistake with kWh units. kWh is a unit of energy - as in, "my e-Golf battery can store 24kWh of energy" or "my utility billed me for 500kWh of energy last month". The charger in the car is either 3.6 or 7.2kW, a measure of power. I just wanted to point that out so that your otherwise excellent post wouldn't confuse people.

Thank you for the correction.

 

[JoulesThief]

Another white e-Golf passed me last night in Pacoima/North Hills/Sylmar area, around 8:30 PM, with Livingston VW plates in place, probably the white with Tan one I looked at Oct 1st or 2nd this year, they only had two 2015 SEL's in stock back then.

I am starting to see these a wee bit more often down here in Los Angeles, white seems to be a great seller down here, as well as blue.

 

[golfsok]

October lease special made those toys really visible. I saw 1-2 in Palo Alto last week and two at Cisco charging lot in San Jose.

 

[JoulesThief]

October lease special made those toys really visible. I saw 1-2 in Palo Alto last week and two at Cisco charging lot in San Jose.

I think almost 600 units alone sold in October, 596 units, I believe. Biggest month ever for VW e-Golfs. I'd suspect about 70-80% of those sales were within 500 mile radius of Silicon Valley.

 

[johnnylingo]

They're no doubt selling quite well up here. Back in September, the Santa Cruz dealership had about 8 available. They're currently cleared out of all 2015s and only have one 2016 at the moment. Deals on the 2015s combined with the TDIs being yanked made for a perfect storm.

However, it's worth mentioning last month was a great month for car sales overall...except for VW, Mercedes, and especially BMW.

http://www.businessinsider.com/us-auto-sales-october-2015-11

 

[JoulesThief]

Well, it's been weeks since I've seen another e-Golf out there. The Juicebox 40 Pro works as designed.... now if I ever get a RAV4 EV to use the full 40 amps is another matter, but it seems that when I plugged in at 11:30pm last night, there was 245V at the outlet at the 30 amps, voltage dropped to 243V when it cranked up to 30 amps charging. At that kind of volts and amps, the recharge goes fairly fast, for level 2. I appreciate the lack of drop in voltage when the load is added.

 

[vwsickness]

For e-golfs in the "wild"....here is in sure a rare sight.

 

[miimura]

Driving around doing a somewhat random family routine on a Saturday in Los Altos, Mountain View, and Cupertino, I saw six e-Golfs in the wild today.

 

[JoulesThief]

Driving around doing a somewhat random family routine on a Saturday in Los Altos, Mountain View, and Cupertino, I saw six e-Golfs in the wild today.

Wow, they are reproducing like Rabbits!

 

[RonDawg]

Talked to the owner, they leased it in March and have I thought she said 19000 miles on it already, by November 1st? Seems crazy, like maybe why didn't they buy a TDI instead?]

They could have bought the car primarily for the solo HOV lane stickers and not necessarily for cost savings.