Will e-golf make a roundtrip from san jose to santa cruz

[jasonring]

I planned to drive my e-golf from San jose to santa cruz (round trip) after a full charge. Will it have enough juice to make it?

Did anyone do this before?

 

[miimura]

San Jose is a pretty big city. How many miles is the trip? Most likely you can make it, but the return trip over the hill will be stressful because the GOM will make you crazy with its wild swings of guessing. The most important part is that you arrive in Santa Cruz with more than 50% battery level.

Regardless of how many miles the trip is, you should check for backup charging locations in case you come up short on range when you're almost to your destination.

 

[jasonring]

From san jose cambrian area to santa cruz. around 27 miles one way.

Anyone made a trip like this before? on hwy 17.

 

[JoulesThief]

From san jose cambrian area to santa cruz. around 27 miles one way.

Anyone made a trip like this before? on hwy 17.[/phquote]

Depends on how fast and aggressive you drive it or how slow and conservative you drive it. Sounds like you should make it, if you slow down a bit. Like 55mph, no AC, windows cracked.

 

[Frank3]

Do you have to go over 17? That would make me nervous. Hills take a lot out of the battery.

 

[miimura]

Do you have to go over 17? That would make me nervous. Hills take a lot out of the battery.

What goes up must come down. I have found that driving over 17 at a conservative speed and using regen downhill to control the speed gives an efficiency equal to driving 65 on a flat highway. The lower average speed reduces your consumption. 60 total miles over 17 and back when it's not raining is no problem.

 

[johnnylingo]

Answer is yes.

Over the Santa Cruz mountains on a single charge (in theory)

Biggest thing to be aware if is you'll burn through 1/4th the battery coming up the hill but will use virtually none coming down until you hit Scotts Valley or Los Gatos. Assuming you don't get stuck in the traffic jam, using the D1/2/3/ regenerative braking modes will help regain some battery.

I've done Santa Cruz to downtown San Jose, Santa Clara, and even Sunnyvale OK. "Worst case" scenario is getting kicked down to Eco mode for the last few miles. Turning off climate control and keeping the speed under 70mph even on the open highway sections avoids that issue and gets me back with 15-25% battery remaining.

 

[JoulesThief]

Do you have to go over 17? That would make me nervous. Hills take a lot out of the battery.

What goes up must come down. I have found that driving over 17 at a conservative speed and using regen downhill to control the speed gives an efficiency equal to driving 65 on a flat highway. The lower average speed reduces your consumption. 60 total miles over 17 and back when it's not raining is no problem.

For the unititiated, define in mph, what "conservative speed" is. It is relevant to this discussion, since peoples driving styles don't always use the same speed in mph for their definition of conservative. Conservative is a relative term to the user. MPH is a more absolute term, that can be quantitatively measured.

 

[miimura]

Do you have to go over 17? That would make me nervous. Hills take a lot out of the battery.

What goes up must come down. I have found that driving over 17 at a conservative speed and using regen downhill to control the speed gives an efficiency equal to driving 65 on a flat highway. The lower average speed reduces your consumption. 60 total miles over 17 and back when it's not raining is no problem.

For the unititiated, define in mph, what "conservative speed" is. It is relevant to this discussion, since peoples driving styles don't always use the same speed in mph for their definition of conservative. Conservative is a relative term to the user. MPH is a more absolute term, that can be quantitatively measured.

It's a winding mountain road. You obviously can't drive it at one specific MPH.

The most important thing for driving Hwy 17 is to avoid the friction brakes. There are downhill straightaways with relatively sharp bends at the bottom. If you drive it like most ICE drivers, even coasting up to high speed, then braking hard before the turn, you will be throwing away all the potential energy as heat in the brake discs. Use the various D modes to control your speed and then either use B when you really need to scrub off some speed, or brake gently so it uses regen instead of friction.

 

[JoulesThief]

What goes up must come down. I have found that driving over 17 at a conservative speed and using regen downhill to control the speed gives an efficiency equal to driving 65 on a flat highway. The lower average speed reduces your consumption. 60 total miles over 17 and back when it's not raining is no problem.

For the unititiated, define in mph, what "conservative speed" is. It is relevant to this discussion, since peoples driving styles don't always use the same speed in mph for their definition of conservative. Conservative is a relative term to the user. MPH is a more absolute term, that can be quantitatively measured.

It's a winding mountain road. You obviously can't drive it at one specific MPH.

The most important thing for driving Hwy 17 is to avoid the friction brakes. There are downhill straightaways with relatively sharp bends at the bottom. If you drive it like most ICE drivers, even coasting up to high speed, then braking hard before the turn, you will be throwing away all the potential energy as heat in the brake discs. Use the various D modes to control your speed and then either use B when you really need to scrub off some speed, or brake gently so it uses regen instead of friction.

I was referring to your conservative travel speed on the freeway portions, in the flats of the valley. As long as you don't peg the regeneration needle at the max in the green, you are not using friction brakes.

 

[miimura]

What goes up must come down. I have found that driving over 17 at a conservative speed and using regen downhill to control the speed gives an efficiency equal to driving 65 on a flat highway. The lower average speed reduces your consumption. 60 total miles over 17 and back when it's not raining is no problem.

For the unititiated, define in mph, what "conservative speed" is. It is relevant to this discussion, since peoples driving styles don't always use the same speed in mph for their definition of conservative. Conservative is a relative term to the user. MPH is a more absolute term, that can be quantitatively measured.

It's a winding mountain road. You obviously can't drive it at one specific MPH.

The most important thing for driving Hwy 17 is to avoid the friction brakes. There are downhill straightaways with relatively sharp bends at the bottom. If you drive it like most ICE drivers, even coasting up to high speed, then braking hard before the turn, you will be throwing away all the potential energy as heat in the brake discs. Use the various D modes to control your speed and then either use B when you really need to scrub off some speed, or brake gently so it uses regen instead of friction.

I was referring to your conservative travel speed on the freeway portions, in the flats of the valley. As long as you don't peg the regeneration needle at the max in the green, you are not using friction brakes.

If you read it again, I was comparing the efficiency of driving at a "conservative speed" with little to no friction brakes in the mountains to driving 65 MPH on flat land.

 

[johnnylingo]

Don't get sucked in to the JoulesThief vortex! :lol:

I agree with your comments 100%. As someone who makes this drive 3 days a week, staying light on the accelerator (i.e. under the 50 mph speed limit) for the uphill sections and using the D1/2/3 modes during the descent will really help conserve battery burn. Again, I'd also stress disabling A/C (or heat) helps for those really obsessing about range.

When I play my cards right, I can make it from Santa Cruz to Willow Glen and burning only 12 kW/h. When I do everything wrong, it's around 18 kW/h.
But that's still well short of the 22 kW/h that the e-Golf's battery has.

 

[dustboy]

Ah the glory of the search bar...I have this exact question. To add another twist, I would like to make this trip from Castro Valley, which is about 50 miles one way. How much charge would I need to have remaining when I pass Los Gatos (last charging station before the hill) to make it safely?

I can charge in Santa Cruz for the return trip.

 

[f1geek]

Check this link:

https://evtripplanner.com/planner/2-8/

Choose Leaf Beta from the dropdown menu to get a sense of how much energy the trip would require. I would assume you have 20 kWh total available.

You should be able to make it from Castro Valley to Santa Cruz on a single charge. As long as you make it to the top of the mountain on Route 17, then you can recharge all the way down to Santa Cruz.

Best of luck.

 

[dustboy]

That's pretty cool. I imagine an app to take the guesswork out of EV driving is not far away.

 

[Mackeroonie]

I commute Santa Cruz (westside) to downtown SJ for work. Can do it there and back on a single charge. I am not sipping on 17 I drive A line all the way in the A-team (i.e. not timid).

 

[Slaphappygamer]

I commute Santa Cruz (westside) to downtown SJ for work. Can do it there and back on a single charge. I am not sipping on 17 I drive A line all the way in the A-team (i.e. not timid).

Hey there, what year egolf do you have? I understand that the 2019 has better range than previous years. Thanks.

 

[Sparklebeard]

I commute Santa Cruz (westside) to downtown SJ for work. Can do it there and back on a single charge. I am not sipping on 17 I drive A line all the way in the A-team (i.e. not timid).

Hey there, what year egolf do you have? I understand that the 2019 has better range than previous years. Thanks.

Both types of e-Golf can make the trip on a single charge. It's trivial on a 36kWh (2017/18/19), and in a 24kWh (2015/6) it just requires economical driving (don't speed over the mountain) and you'll be ok with enough buffer for the drive. There's fast charging on the route in an emergency so you'd be ok if you discovered you had to run errands after work.

The main concern with a 24kWh e-Golf would be that you'd likely be charging near or to 100% every day, which isn't ideal for the battery. It's not too bad if you use the charge timer too have it only reach 100% right before you leave in the morning, but if the 36kWh version is an option for you you may wish to consider it.

 

[Slaphappygamer]

I commute Santa Cruz (westside) to downtown SJ for work. Can do it there and back on a single charge. I am not sipping on 17 I drive A line all the way in the A-team (i.e. not timid).

Hey there, what year egolf do you have? I understand that the 2019 has better range than previous years. Thanks.

Both types of e-Golf can make the trip on a single charge. It's trivial on a 36kWh (2017/18/19), and in a 24kWh (2015/6) it just requires economical driving (don't speed over the mountain) and you'll be ok with enough buffer for the drive. There's fast charging on the route in an emergency so you'd be ok if you discovered you had to run errands after work.

The main concern with a 24kWh e-Golf would be that you'd likely be charging near or to 100% every day, which isn't ideal for the battery. It's not too bad if you use the charge timer too have it only reach 100% right before you leave in the morning, but if the 36kWh version is an option for you you may wish to consider it.

Thank you for the awesome, in-depth reply. I’m heavily considering a 2019 egolf. The golf was on my list of ICE hatchbacks. Since there a charger at my house already for a Tesla (not mine), I started looking at EVs. I’ll just need to get a Tesla to j1772 adapter.