Category Archives: Volkswagen

News and reviews of Volkswagen electric cars (including plug-in hybrids).

Tesco and VW plan free electric car charging points

December 11, 2018Charging, e-Golf, e-Up, Electric Cars, News, Reviews and Comment, POD Point, VolkswagenRepost

Free charging for electric cars will be available for customers at some Tesco stores from next year.

Tesco, in partnership with Volkswagen, plans to install almost 2,500 charging bays at up to 600 stores by 2020.

A standard 7kW charger will be available for free, but drivers will have to pay for a faster service.

Customers will be able to leave their cars to charge while doing their shopping, which should give time for a “substantial” free charge, VW said.

How long it will take to fully replenish the battery will depend on the type of car. A company called Podpoint will build the charging facilities for VW and Tesco.

Volkswagen has two electric vehicles on the market in the UK, the e-Golf and the e-Up. It has sold about 1,350 of the cars since they went on sale four years ago, but has plans for a massive expansion.

By 2020 it wants to offer an electric version of all its models.

Volkswagen e-Golf – long-term test: is the family hatchback still one of the best when it’s electrified?

November 24, 2018e-Golf, Electric Cars, News, Reviews and Comment, VolkswagenRepost

It is fair to say that the regular Volkswagen Golf is one of the best all-round buys – competitively priced when new and holding its value well. Does ditching an internal combustion engine make it a better day-to-day bet than a bespoke electric car?

Our car: Volkswagen e-Golf List price when new: £32,730 (excluding PICG grant) Price as tested: £35,490 (excluding PICG grant) Official fuel economy: n/a

November 13, 2018

Average consumption: 4.3 miles/kWh

This week, I thought I’d highlight two aspects of the e-Golf that have particularly caught my attention – one electrical, one mechanical.

The electrical has – perhaps surprisingly, for an electric vehicle – nothing to do with the e-Golf’s powertrain. No, what I’ve been particularly struck by, as the clocks have gone back and the nights have closed in, is the lighting system.

All e-Golfs, unlike regular Golfs, have LED headlights and C-shaped daytime running lights (DRLs) – and they’re very bright. LED lights are becoming increasingly commonplace on modern cars, filtering down model ranges and from premium marques to be found on mainstream cars.

Their greater brightness (compared with xenon lights) is a valuable safety feature, allowing a car to be seen from a greater distance and enabling the driver to see further ahead. In addition, they use less power than xenon lights, so are more efficient – an advantage for all cars, but a definite boon to an EV, where you want as much of the electrical energy as possible assigned to powering the car.

It’s noticeable how much brighter the e-Golf’s LED lights compared with those of oncoming cars and, allied to the DRLs, they improve the face of the car.

The Three Horsemen of the Apocalypse

September 24, 2018Audi, BMW, Electric Cars, i3, i3 94Ah, Mercedes, News, Reviews and Comment, Opinion, VolkswagenRepost

By the middle of the next decade, the world as we know it will end. This end is not written in stone, it was not predicted by the Mayans, and it was not foretold by UFO religions.

This end has been sung in the past few years in press releases, statements and interviews. It is the prophesied end of the internal combustion engine. And its killers, the three horsemen of the apocalypse, are finally here, waiting for the fourth to join them.

Until September 2018, the electric car segment has been one of marginal delight, laughter, and discord. Caught between the flamboyant statements showing the impressive sale figures for the Nissan Leaf, the pot-smelling tweets of Elon Musk, and promises made from all over the industry to go all electric, the world watched in amusement and amazement what until now amounted to nothing more than good television.

But no more. The big boys came out to play this month, and their way of playing the game will change the industry. As Turkish used to say, Ze Germans are here. And they are here because they saw something they like.

The three heralds of doom are Daimler, BMW, and Volkswagen. All three, be it in their own name or that of some of their subbrands, revealed in the past two weeks the three horsemen that will shape the future: the EQC, the Vision iNext, and the e-tron SUV.

How will they end the ICE world? Through sheer strength, numbers, and services.

Strength. The three are the biggest players in the automotive industry, period. Combined, their power – read sales numbers, financial figures, pretty much everything – dwarfs any competition.

And it is power that gets noticed. Try as it might, Tesla is incapable of single-handedly change centuries of habits and patterns, of changing rules and regulations, of getting enough government support. But when the likes of Daimler, BMW and Volkswagen step into the room, everything changes.

Numbers. Daimler plans to have on the roads ten different all-electric cars by 2022. BMW has 12 of them in the works, all to be released by 2025. Volkswagen shames both of them with plans to launch 80 new models across its brands by the same year.

185,000 Plug-In Cars Were Sold In Europe In First Half Of 2018

August 21, 2018BMW, e-Golf, Electric Cars, i3, i3 94Ah, Leaf, Mitsubishi, Model S, Model X, News, Reviews and Comment, Nissan, Outlander PHEV, Renault, Sales, Tesla, Volkswagen, ZOE, ZOE Z.E. 40Trevor Larkum

June was the second-best month all time for plug-in electric car sales in Europe with more than 38,000 units put on the road.

With year-over-year growth of 37% in June, market share jumped to 2.4% (2.2% for the first half of the year).

The total sales in the first six months nearly hit 185,000 (43% more than a year ago) and it’s expected that more than 400,000 is possible in all of 2018.

Ultra-low emission registrations up 386% on first quarter of 2014 (Image: OLEV) — Ultra-low emission registrations up (Image: OLEV)

The top five best selling models in Europe – for the year are:

Nissan LEAF – 3,377 and 17,944 YTD
Renault ZOE – 3,425 and 17,016 YTD
BMW i3 – 2,002 and 11,301 YTD
Volkswagen e-Golf – 1,447 and 9,796 YTD
Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV – 2,174 and 9,662 YTD

Renault ZOE this time managed to beat Nissan LEAF and close the gap a little bit in the race for the best selling model.

As usual, the last month of the quarter brings some decent numbers from Tesla – 2,105 Model S and 1,829 Model X in June and 7,699 and 5,600, respectively for the year-to-date.

Car emissions scandal: loopholes in the lab tests

August 17, 2018Electric Cars, Energy and Climate Change, News, Reviews and Comment, Pollution, VolkswagenTrevor Larkum

Three years after Dieselgate, automakers are still exploiting ‘the lawful but awful ways’ to achieve the best possible scores for CO2 testing in the EU

When Volkswagen was caught cheating diesel emissions tests in 2015, one of the first actions its engineers took was to launch a secret project: to obtain cars from rival manufacturers and conduct tests on their emissions. Its aim was to find evidence of widespread cheating across the industry, so guilt could be spread around and penalties diluted, say two people inside the company.

The Volkswagen Scandal, in other words, might helpfully become the Car Scandal.

Vehicles from Fiat, Hyundai and others were tested for harmful nitrogen oxide emissions by VW engineers at the group’s Wolfsburg headquarters from late 2015 to early 2016. The engineers had a simple conundrum: VW had just admitted to equipping 11m cars with software to detect laboratory tests and enable them to enter a low-emissions mode. If VW’s best engineers found regulations so onerous that they resorted to deliberate fraud, what had its rivals done?

A third person in the company insists there was a more innocent explanation for the tests. Engineers uninvolved in the original cheating had to use rival cars as control variables to better understand their own sophisticated software — some of it supplied by third parties and used by rival brands. “We were not dirtying others’ hands to make our own look clean,” says this employee.

Volkswagen declined to comment on this previously unreported episode.

What the engineers found shocked them. Rival brands’ NOx emissions were considered “a complete disaster”. Performance on the road was “completely different to the technical data”, says a VW worker briefed on the results. The overall summary of whether rivals were also skewing emissions results was clear: “It’s not only VW who is cheating.”

What is unclear is whether rivals were deploying the same strategy as VW — using a “defeat device” to illegally trick regulators into believing its cars were green — or if they had simply become better at bending the rules on tests, a problem that still exists with petrol cars today, as the European Commission revealed last month when it disclosed the latest “tricks” carmakers were using to exploit loopholes for incoming 2020 emissions procedures.

The distinction is blurred but important. VW paid the consequences of crossing the line and cheating NOx emissions tests in the US. But the efforts of other carmakers to legally undermine testing for both NOx and CO2 in Europe have never resulted in real penalties.

“Legal optimisation was done on an industrial scale,” says Nick Molden, chief executive of Emissions Analytics, which conducts real-world driving emissions tests. “It became so ingrained in how cars were certified that the carmakers didn’t understand they had done something wrong . . . That’s the scandal in Europe: that these actions were not illegal.”

Renault Zoe Climbs To #1 In Germany

August 7, 20182 Series Active Tourer PHEV, BMW, Cooper Countryman PHEV, e-Golf, Electric Cars, i3, i3 94Ah, MINI, News, Reviews and Comment, Renault, Sales, Volkswagen, ZOE, ZOE Z.E. 40Trevor Larkum

The German plug-in electric car (PEV) market grew 23% in June, to 5,709 registrations, with plug-in hybrids (+25%) and fully electric cars (+21%) growing at a similar pace. In 2018, all-electrics are reaching 1% share, while plug-in hybrids have also grown their share to 1%, resulting in a total PEV share of 2%.

But the most interesting story on the fuels mix is the Titanic-like drop of diesel vehicles sales. In June, their sales sank 16%, to the benefit of all other kinds of fuels. Diesel now represents only 31% of the market. At this pace, diesel sales could be tot in this market by 2021. Inconceivable? Well, in 12 months, diesel lost 9% share, going from 40% to 31%.

Looking at June best sellers, BMW had a 1–2 win, with the i3 scoring 509 units, a new year best, while the 225xe Active Tourer registered 500 units, a new record for the German MPV.

The Renault Zoe was 3rd, while the surprise of the month was the #5 Mini Countryman PHEV. With 300 deliveries, it had its best result ever in Germany.

Just outside the top 5, the VW e-Golf registered only 290 deliveries, its worst performance in 11 months. Is the German brand already starting the sunset mode of its BEV hatchback?

Volkswagen admits it can’t cope with new emissions tests

June 16, 2018Electric Cars, Energy and Climate Change, News, Reviews and Comment, VolkswagenTrevor Larkum

Germany’s Volkswagen has warned its main factory in Wolfsburg faces temporary shutdowns later this year, owing to new emissions test standards.

It plans “closure days” to prevent a build-up of vehicles that have yet to be approved for sale.

From September, more rigorous EU standards apply, designed to replicate real driving conditions more closely.

Now VW says it does not have enough testing equipment to cope and fears that a backlog of cars will ensue.

At a meeting with unions on Wednesday, chief executive Herbert Diess admitted that meeting the new requirements, and getting new cars approved for sale, was proving a challenge.

Closure plan

“We will only build vehicles after the works holiday that fulfil the new standards. The deliveries will take place gradually as soon as the necessary approvals are there,” Mr Diess told staff.

“But many vehicles will have to be warehoused in the meantime. To make sure their numbers don’t become too large, we will have to plan closure days through the end of September,” he added.

VW is still facing fallout from the scandal over its emissions cheating, which erupted in September 2015.

Battle of the electric family cars: 2017 BMW i3 REX vs Volkswagen e-Golf

September 13, 2017BMW, e-Golf, Electric Cars, i3 94Ah, News, Reviews and Comment, VolkswagenJo

BY 2040, if the government gets its way, drivers looking for a new car will have a simple choice: buy an electric car or a hybrid car.

The Volkswagen e-Golf and BMW i3 REX give a taste of things to come. The former is Britain’s best-known family hatchback first, and a pure-electric car second. It should mean it’s user-friendly and doesn’t require as big a leap of faith as a high diver jumping from a cliff top.

The i3 REX is an electric car for pragmatists. In addition to having an electric motor and a battery pack, it has a two-cylinder petrol engine, packaged beneath the boot floor, in the same space as the car’s electric motor. This acts as a generator, to maintain battery charge when it gets low.

The e-Golf, which is propelled under battery power alone, has been revised for 2017 as part of the updated Golf range, and can officially travel 186 miles on a single charge. The i3 REX has a battery range of around 140 miles, but the REX motor allows it to travel a total of 200 miles before you need a top-up of electricity or petrol.
The e-Golf, which is propelled under battery power alone, has been revised for 2017 as part of the updated Golf range, and can officially travel 186 miles on a single charge. The i3 REX has a

We put the pair to the test, on a trip to the seaside. Needless to say, it rained; could the electric cars keep our spirits high?

2017 Volkswagen e-Golf review

Words: Will Dron

Well, it’s a Golf, isn’t it? VW sold 5,236 of its ever-popular hatchback in July alone, just 15 short of the best-selling Ford Focus. In order to create its electric car, all VW had to do was strip out the petrol or (whisper it) diesel engine, along with its transmission, and bolt in a few Duracell batteries and an electric motor. Oh, and change the alloys and tweak the styling of the lights slightly.

When you climb inside, it looks like a Golf, too. The instruments are the same, the switchgear is the same, the seats are the same, the infotainment system is the same (albeit with updated software to show electric energy flow and driving efficiency).

The i3, on the other hand… now that’s an incredible achievement. Designed from the ground up as an electric car, with a carbon fibre tub to save weight and carefully considered packaging, for optimal weight distribution. And the interior of the i3 — totally original and full of reclaimed wood and other dolphin-friendly materials. BMW put a huge amount of research and development into coming up with that car.

But then you remember… being a Golf is no bad thing.

The moment the penny really dropped was when James Mills, having parked his totally original, very clever little i3 REX next to the e-Golf, was having a little root around the back of my car. He quickly pointed out that the i3 has only four seats, whereas the VW has five, just like a normal Golf. Yes, the transmission tunnel houses the battery pack, so it doesn’t have a flat floor in the rear, but other than that, it’s a Golf.

VW denied permission to use SEAT name on EVs in China

September 4, 2017Electric Cars, News, Reviews and Comment, VolkswagenJo

SEAT, a brand of the Volkswagen (VW) Group, is being prevented by a Chinese Government agency from lending its name to a number of locally made electric vehicles (EVs).

In a move which is seen as limiting foreign manufacturer ability to compete in the country’s car market, especially with the introduction of quotas on EVs in 2018, VW has been refused permission to use the SEAT name on vehicles produced by its joint venture with Chinese firm JAC. However, according to a report in the Financial Times, the decision could yet change, according to one person familiar with the matter. ‘The first step is for a local brand name,’ he said.

The ability for vehicle manufacturers to use their brand power to sell vehicles in the world’s biggest car market could be at stake, with the potential domination by foreign brands threatening to out-compete the country’s home-grown industry and the country’s plans to become a world leader in EVs and battery technology. The latter is a move already seen with the announcement that Geely will turn Volvo into an electric and hybrid only manufacturer, and a Chinese consortium buying Nissan’s battery company.

Therefore, a foreign name on a car produced by a venture including a Chinese company would be seen as taking away a local name from the market. Some are interpreting the National Development and Reform Commission’s (NRDC) decision as one aimed at ultimately hamstringing foreign carmakers’ ability to market locally produced electric vehicles and hybrids in China, where their brand recognition could provide an edge over local Chinese brands.

More details surface on VW, Audi and JLR’s model electrification plans

September 1, 2017Audi, Electric Cars, Jaguar Land Rover, News, Reviews and Comment, VolkswagenJo

Further to the news reported yesterday (15 August) that Skoda is ramping up plans to launch four electric vehicles (EVs) by 2021 and a further two by 2025, including two SUVs and an image-boosting sports car, more details of EV plans from Volkswagen Group’s other brands Volkswagen (VW) and Audi have come to light.

Also, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) plans to offer plug-in hybrid variants of its best-selling Range Rover and Range Rover Sport models from the beginning of 2018.

According to an article published on autoblog.com, the I.D. Crozz crossover will be VW’s second EV based on the dedicated MEB (modular electric drive) platform, following the I.D. hatchback. The Crozz is now scheduled for a market launch at the end of 2020 or early in 2021. Autoblog also reports that the Crozz will even be the first MEB-based vehicle to launch in the US as there are no plans to introduce the I.D. hatchback there.

Whereas the I.D. hatchback has a quoted range of 373 miles on the European test cycle, the Crozz is quoted at 311 miles. As the Crozz will feature four-wheel drive, it will be powered by two motors producing a total of 302 horsepower, compared with the 168 horsepower reported for the regular I.D. hatchback.

As previously reported, the I.D. Buzz microbus-styled minivan (pictured) is expected to arrive in showrooms by 2022 and so will be VW’s third EV offering, but autoblog also suggests that this model could now come to market much later, possibly not even until 2025.

Meanwhile, Autocar reports that the second-generation Audi Q3, which is scheduled for launch within the next year, will be offered in both plug-in hybrid and fully electric versions. According to Autocar, ‘Ingolstadt sources involved in the engineering of the new Audi also confirm that the German car maker is working on a pure electric version of the second-generation Q3 as part of plans to meet China’s new energy vehicle regulations.’ Audi is also planning to introduce an electric version of its new Q2 subcompact crossover to the Chinese market within the next year.