Please, give me the sales pitch!

[soylentgreen]

I have no idea if these two facts are related, but...

* About three months ago, I signed up on VW's "I'm interested in the eGolf" web page. Nothing. I signed up again a month ago just to be sure. Nothing. I got some *other* emails from VW (related to my other VW car) but no eGolf news. Zero zip nada.

* When trying to register for these forums, my (valid) registration was rejected 3x in a row. I almost gave up.

Perhaps lack of traffic on this forum is not due to lack of interest?

 

[admin]

Hi, if you remember, could you give me details on the errors you were receiving when trying to register on the forum? I'd like to make sure it isn't a widespread problem keeping less persistent people from joining!
Mike

 

[cove3]

I signed up for e-golf contact also. No dealer ever contacted me either. I only found out my local dealer had one by checking
http://www.cars.com/for-sale/search...m=location&sf1Dir=ASC&sf2Nm=price&sf2Dir=DESC

I called and took a test drive and told them I wanted gray, which they said they would try to get, but so far nothing. I don't like high pressure salesmen, but this is ridiculous. It could be they don't have very many e-golfs to sell and their quota and pay comes from selling ices, not bevs

Ron

 

[GetOffYourGas]

I too signed up for information and have since been flooded with information on every VW model except the eGolf. :evil:

 

[EvilSpock]

Same here, if you sign up for "e-golf" notifications, you just get on VW's general spam list. Quite annoying. They even updated their website adding e-golf information, but didn't send any email about that, or the fact that they are finally available to buy.

I was ready to buy a black one, they couldn't tell me what colors they were getting. All the ones in my area came in white/blue. They don't have the ability to special order these, basically they get what VW sends them. I was told once they sell current stock then they get more, then there is a chance at different colors.

 

[JaegerVW]

Hey guys, I've had mine for 3 weeks now, I got one of the white with black interior, but I know that the other colors besides Pacific Blue were delayed a bit for whatever reason. But they should be rolling out soon. I think I actually got one of the very first ones (Nov4th) and certainly the first one in the Bay Area. There is another (Pacific Blue) one at my work already and another guy is waiting for his to show up. Apparently there was snafu with the delivery allotment where some dealers were getting way more than they were supposed to and others were not getting what they had already pre-sold, so VW canceled all pre-sales, and are re-allocating the distribution. Thankfully I got one of the 1st shipment and avoided all that.

anyway I LOVE IT!!!!
and I usually drive a 2004 VW R32. It's certainly peppy and fun to drive as a commuter and very efficient! I use the brake re-gen levels all the time, which also makes me upset VW took that feature off the steering wheel paddles and put it on the shifter.... but it all works great! The LED lights up front make it a real looker too, even had some Tesla owners give me a few cool thumbs - up as I silently wizzed past in the other direction.
The control you have over the re-gen and the different driving modes make this car WAY more controllable than the i3 or the Leaf. And it all is easy to understand, and just as practical as a regular golf, and that's GREAT!

See my post that i started to read more about my experience so far..
cheers!

 

[soylentgreen]

One minute ago, I just got a VW eGolf-specific email. Perhaps VW was listening? Anyone else get it?

 

[cove3]

I got the same generic one. At the bottom you could click check inventory, but it came up zero inventory for my immediate dealers, which I knew anyway from checking each dealers inventory.

Supposedly vw is making 80 per day and can shift the gas version line to make more e-golfs but the same 110-118 cars have been at cars.com for weeks now

Ron

 

[GetOffYourGas]

I got it too. It says that the closest authorized e-Mobility dealer is the VW dealer 5 miles from my house. But the closest in inventory is 30 miles away, in Rome, NY. Still cool that they are starting to show up, and outside of CA no less.

 

[tagnydaggart]

I suspect that by now some of the supply/demand issues have been sorted, because my experience was pretty fluid.

I live in North Carolina... well, now I do. I was living in Europe for 15 years before this. Before even arriving here, I knew I was going to need a car, so I started looking at Teslas and other cars. I am a VW lover, so I was absolutely delighted when I discovered that the finally got into the EV game. This is my 5th VW and except for Tesla, I seriously doubt I'll buy from another manufacturer again.

Unfortunately, they (still) don't sell the e-Golf in NC. The nearest dealer was in Maryland. I called them and bought the Limited Edition, Pacific Blue model sight-unseen (note, purchased, not leased), and had it delivered to my destination in NC (private arrangement, cost me $500 in the end). It would have been a perfect transaction had the dealer not forgotten to supply the temporary tags. It was super frustrating having this car in my driveway for 4 days and I couldn't take her out! But that was human error at the dealer, not VW's fault.

Anyway... I HAVE ZERO REGRETS! This car is awesome*. Granted I live in a very EV-friendly area in NC (lots of charge points and every 5th car is a Prius already) and my commute is well within the 80-100 mile range of the car. Anyway, it really doesn't matter, because this car was purchased to be the around town car. I will likely get the Model 3 from Tesla once it is actually available, and that will be the family car and/or long(er) range trip car. But first, I will be buying a house in the area and erecting an array of grid-connected PV panels––enough for household electric needs, the e-Golf and a Tesla. I'm really hoping I can manage to arrange all of this before the Federal Tax Credit incentive expires at the end of 2016.

* except for the issues with Car Net and the Infotainment system, both of which need a serious update, which I am counting on.

 

[cove3]

Who is going to service the car if something bad goes out?

Ron

 

[tagnydaggart]

If that happens in the short-term, I'll pop it on a transport back to the dealer in MD. I'm hoping that they'll be selling them locally before anything like this happens though =) I've had nothing but great experiences with VWs... but I did purchase the extended warranty just in case. =)

 

[miimura]

There are several important TSBs out on the e-Golf. You probably should have made sure those were done on the car before you shipped it from the selling dealer. However, there's probably no reason that VW Customer Service can't arrange to have somebody that has been trained do it near you. It will probably be a hassle though.

 

[jdorff]

Unfortunately, they (still) don't sell the e-Golf in NC. The nearest dealer was in Maryland. I called them and bought the Limited Edition, Pacific Blue model sight-unseen (note, purchased, not leased), and had it delivered to my destination in NC (private arrangement, cost me $500 in the end). It would have been a perfect transaction had the dealer not forgotten to supply the temporary tags. It was super frustrating having this car in my driveway for 4 days and I couldn't take her out! But that was human error at the dealer, not VW's fault.

Anyway... I HAVE ZERO REGRETS! This car is awesome*. Granted I live in a very EV-friendly area in NC (lots of charge points and every 5th car is a Prius already) and my commute is well within the 80-100 mile range of the car.

This is awesome. The lease on my Focus Electric is coming up and I'm really considering bringing an e-Golf to NC as well.

 

[jfoxx]

@tagnydaggart I'm really interested in hearing more about how it has gone for you. I am in Raleigh and I also would love to import an e-Golf. I contacted my local VW dealership and they said they would not be able to service it. He also said the rumor was that it would not be sold in NC until 2017. :x

It does seem like with the bad press around diesel that they would push to make the electrics more available. It also seems like the local dealership should be trained to service any car VW sells in NA. What if someone moves here with an e-Golf?

 

[PMC2015]

You might try more dealers...

This January I'm moving from CA to WA with my e-golf and found that one of the bigger dealerships is ready to help even though they don't sell the e-golf. Might be the case in NC even if it isn't your closest dealer