My Adventures with Electric Past - 2016 VW e-Golf

ShawneeCreek said:

I'd like to charge to just 90%, but there isn't a really easy way to do it. VW didn't leave me a "maximum charge point" setting for general charging. The only way I can do it is set a departure time, where I can set a target state of charge. It would just mean having to change that departure time every time I need it.

....or I could set the overall minimum state of charge to 90%. But that would mean charging at home or having to change that set point every time. I'll have to look into this a bit. 

While the e-Golf works well as a normal car, it does lack a lot of the features and customization possibilities that the newer EVs have. For instance, it doesn't tell me charging rate. It only estimates when the car will reach full charge. And there used to be an app from VW that could communicate with the car and set things up, kind of like OnStar. But much liked GM and OnStar, VW built these cars with 3G network modems... right before the cell phone companies shut down the 3G wireless networks. .. facepalm..

I know I had my '15 set to only charge to 90% but not that I think of it, I honestly can't remember the mechanism.  I suppose it could have been the minimum trick.  That 3G nonsense was the ONLY way to do any charge management.  There was no access through the infotainment system and the VW app was just terrible.  I wouldn't be surprised if it was terminally broken BEFORE the 3G shutdown.

I have a Turo Model 3 on vacation right now.  The app is barely distinguishable from a traditional remote.  SO slick - the owner gave me access so I'm connected just like it was my car.  

Love the Rivian content.  My buddy just picked up an R1T with the Adventure package.  I've seen it but haven't been in it yet.

ShawneeCreek said:

Keith Tanner said:

mfennell said:

It looks like you're charging to 100%.  I'd give some thought to charging to 90%, at least when the weather is warmer.  The battery will last longer.

I think this is one area the various EV manufacturers treat differently. Some - like Tesla - allow you to charge to 100% of the battery's capacity when you request it. They recommend you use a lower max charging level for daily use, somewhere between 80-90%.

Others will leave some margin in there, so "100%" is really less than that. Good for long term battery health because the owner can't override the recommendation of the engineers, but it does limit the maximum possible range a little. It also means the car appears to charge faster, as that last 20% goes in much slower. If the car is really only charging to 80% of the actual capacity (but reporting it as 100%), it will reach "full" with a higher charge rate. You can really see it on the Tesla, the rate slows waaaaay down as you get over 80%.

I don't know how the VW is set up.

I'm pretty sure the VW is set up in the "the engineer is smarter than the owner" configuration. What I have seen online that the battery capacity is 24 kWh, but the usable capacity is only 20 kWh, aka about 80%. Also, there is no mention in owners manual about not regularly charging to full capacity. The only mention of not fully charging is if you start at the top of a mountain. Here's a nice review somebody did of a used e-Golf of the same year as mine: Inside EVs link. Looks like ~6% degradation over 6 years and 30k miles.

Yeah, if "useable capacity" is less than total capacity, they're leaving a buffer. Charge to 100% of useable capacity and don't worry about it.

Based on what I've seen of Tesla battery deg, there's an initial drop-off and then it levels off. If it's at 6% after 30k miles, it would probably be 8% at 100k.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

The rear axle disconnects we make are mechanical, not electrical. They fit between the output gears of the rear drive units (one for each wheel) and their respective halfshafts. They allow the truck to physically disconnect the rear motors from the road and put the truck into "Conserve Mode", aka front wheel drive. This extends the range by 10% over all wheel drive, since the rear motors don't need to spin at all. Then, when you need all wheel drive again the truck can match gearbox output speed to wheel speed and engage the disconnects. It's actually a clever design that only requires electrical power to change state. There is a lot more detail in this Munro Live teardown of the Rivian drive unit. Starting around 24:25 in.

Oh cool, I am definitely checking that out. I have an older set on my Land Rover ;)

Back to the driving adventure with the rented Rivian. Let's see... we had done 300 miles of driving, charged twice, and were on our way to friends in Mount Vernon. The drive there was pretty uneventful. I was settling in to the Rivian and it was feeling more like my truck and less like a rental. We either played music via Bluetooth from my phone or listened to podcasts via the service built into the truck. For the highway driving I kept the truck in Conserve Mode to maximize range, especially since I didn't need maximum acceleration or all wheel drive on the highway. We averaged right around 2.0 miles/kWh at a steady 70-75 mph.

Now is as good a time as any to describe the driving modes in the Rivian. There are five primary modes and they modify the accelerator, steering, suspension height, suspension dampening, regeneration, and probably numerous other things the owner can't see.

• First up is "All Purpose". All wheel drive. Low, Normal, or High ride heights. For normal driving. Medium range (296 from memory)
• "Conserve". Two wheel drive, thanks to those disconnects. Normal, Low, or Lowest ride heights. Or you can select auto, and the truck starts at normal height, then lowers as speed increases. Maximum range (310 miles)
• "Sport". All wheel drive. Maximum power. Stiff dampers. Starts in Low ride height. Less range (286 miles).
• "Towing". All wheel drive. Prefers to only be used when a trailer is plugged in. Range approximately halved, depending on trailer aerodynamics, weight, and speed. Rated to tow up to 11,000 pounds.
• "Off Road". Driver has to acknowledge a warning message about "for use off the road only" if the GPS says you are near any road and select this mode. All wheel drive. Can unlock High and Highest suspension height depending on sub-mode. Sub-modes include: Rock Crawl, Rally, Drift, Sand, and one I'm forgetting at the moment. Unfortunately, I never got to drive in any of the off road modes. I did put it into Highest ride height while parked a couple of times. It is a significant difference from Low and Lowest. Something like 15" of clearance versus 6".

I took my friends in Mount Vernon for a ride. The first launch from nearly stopped made them break out into giggles at the absurdity of it. They were duly impressed with the rest of the truck and the unique thoughtfulness put into it. Things like the camp speaker, the flashlight in the door, the gear-tunnel access from the back seat, and the chair-height, load bearing doors of the gear tunnel. We talked briefly, said our goodbyes, and hit the road.

We needed to get to southern Toledo by 7 pm for dinner with the other side of the family and we needed a charge stop in the middle to make it. This meant a stop at the Electrify America station in Mansfield, Ohio. It ended up being only 14 minutes and 30 kWh of charging to go from 36% to 55% state of charge. At $0.43 per kWh it cost $12.90. This was going to be just enough to get us to dinner with 30-40 miles of range remaining and the hotel only 3 miles away. Luckily, this just worked out. We arrived on time with 38 miles of range. The range gauge has gone from green, through yellow, and had turned red.

Dinner was delicious and being with family was good. Afterwards I took the men for one launch, in a closed course, naturally  and the range plummeted from 36 miles to 20! Woah! Again, the hotel was close. We arrived with 18 miles remaining and plugged in to the level 2 ChargePoint station nearby. $0.41/kWh, which is pretty pricey, but it was the best option.

All in that day we did 567 miles of driving, in 9 hours and 36 minutes, averaging 58 mph, at 1.95 mi/kWh, using a total of 292 kWh of energy. We started with a full charge in Michigan, charged for 45 minutes in Dundee, Michigan, 45 minutes in Dayton, Ohio, and 14 minutes in Mansfield, Ohio to end the day with less that 10% charge remaining. Needless to say, we were pooped and slept in the next day because we weren't in a hurry to get the rest of the way home. The truck could charge while we slept.

Another random Rivian picture to end this post. Old and New:

In reply to ShawneeCreek :

That's awesome you were involved with those axle disconnects!  I'm sure I had seen the 'mechanical diode' type one-way clutch before, but my first thought during the Munro vid was "hey, they used flapper-locking, like DShK/ RPD/ G43/ etc."  My 2nd thought was that design could be used on a transfer case to easily shift between FWD, RWD, or 4WD.

A permanent magnet motor becomes a generator if it is spun w/o power, hence the need for the mechanical disconnect.  Tesla's solution was to use one induction motor and one PM motor.

Some pics stolen from a Rivian forum post and attachment

In reply to Oapfu :

Yep. That's the assembly that has been my work life for the past three and a half years. Looks like they grabbed some of the marketing material my boss created too.

We work up late the next morning and had breakfast within walking distance so the truck could continue to charge. HangOverEasy. Good breakfast food. And breakfast cocktails, if that's your thing. After checking out and unplugging the truck we had charged for a total of 13 hours at 6kW. This cost $32.49 and got the truck to 63% charge, or about 200 miles of range in Conserve Mode. Mrs. ShawneeCreek wanted good coffee from Speedway, so I parked my electric truck in front of the gas pumps and waited while she got that. Naturally, I had to take a picture.

We needed at least one charging stop on the way home to make it back. Originally I was going to use the Electrify America station near Ann Arbor, but that was down for unknown reasons according to their app. That meant the station near Novi was the next best choice. Before we got there, we stopped at IKEA in Canton to stretch our legs and walk around. Conveniently, they have a few level 2 chargers out front, so we plugged in.

Conveniently for IKEA, we bought a dining room table and chairs while in the store. The boxes with the table just fit diagonally in the bed of the truck. We only got 17 miles of range in an hour and half of charging (at ~4.6 kW), but better than nothing.

Once we got to Novi I dropped Mrs. ShawneeCreek at the mall to walk for her daily step goal. I then drove across the highway to the charging station. This was the most inconvenient charging stop of the trip. All four chargers were full and I was second in line waiting for a spot. It was 25 minutes before I could start charging truck. While I charged two others left and a Lucid Air pulled into the far right spot and plugged into the second from right charger. ..facepalm.. After 30 minutes of charging the truck was charged enough for me to leave. I picked up Mrs. ShawneeCreek, who had met her step goal and we made it home with about 50% charge remaining. Why 50%? I hear you asking. Well, I had one more adventure to do with the truck on Monday and needed as much charge as I could get. I plugged in the truck in the garage to charge overnight and snapped this picture with the ever tolerant Mrs. ShawneeCreek. She's a keeper  Especially after 769 miles of driving in two days.

My adventure with the truck on Monday was to share the Rivian with all the employees at our manufacturing plant and corporate headquarters. My goal was to give everyone a short ride in the R1T so they could experience what our disconnect endures and how it benefits the Rivian owners.

The truck charged for 8 hours overnight and I left for work at 4:30 in the morning to catch the night shift before they left at 6 am. The shift supervisors and employees has been briefed ahead of time and were setup in groups of three to go for rides. I would start by asking if anyone has ridden in an EV before (most had not). Then I would point out how quiet it was and explain how the regenerative braking worked. Then I mentioned that the best part of this truck was it's 850 hp and 900 lbf-ft. of torque. By the time that was done we had reached a nice straight on-ramp to the interstate. I would ask is everyone was ready, count down from three, and launch from 10-70 mph, using only about half of the on-ramp.

Reactions to the acceleration varied from "What the Berk!", to "Holy E36M3!", to stunned silence as they tried to catch their breath, to panicked screams. They then got a quick demonstration of adaptive cruise control, Highway Assist, and how the predicted range increases when I switched into Conserve Mode. By then we had turned around at the next exit and they got to experience another 10-70 mph launch on that on-ramp. Most everyone had fun and I still hear people taking about it almost two weeks later.

I had to charge the truck over lunch to keep up with the heavy duty cycle. Luckily there is a free (FREE!) DC fast charger in town only five miles from work. It's only 65 kW, but that is much better than the 9 kW from the chargers at work. This charger is my Plan B if the chargers at work aren't working for any reason. I did rides until about 4 that afternoon and the truck never missed a beat. I had to have launched that truck 50 or 60 times. My neck and right foot hurt the next day. I know, break out your tiny violins to play for my sad story.

Unfortunately the R1T had to be returned that night to the Novi area. We made it fine with about 80 miles remaining. I had put more than 1,100 miles on it of the 5,500 on the odometer. While there I got to check out a few of the other EVs available for rent: Hyundai ioniq5, Mercedes EQS, Tesla Model S Plaid, and a Lucid Air Dream. I actually sat in the Lucid. Very short in hight and long in length. It felt cramped inside in the the same way as my Fiata did. Duck under the roof. Interior packed in around you. Looks really nice in pearl white though.

So after all of that driving, am I going to go out and buy my own Rivian R1T? No. It's just not in my budget. I'm not in a place where in willing to afford an $85,000 new vehicle. But if I had that kind of money to spend I would, especially since I helped design and engineer part of it. I'd probably get the R1S instead as it's a little smaller and I already have a truck to do truck things. They are not the most efficient EVs, but they are pretty efficient for their size. And the Rivians feel like they are worth their MSRPs. Lots of quality components, gadgets, and you can't forget the performance.

Even then, a Rivian couldn't be my only vehicle. Getting to and from my family in east central Indiana would be a 7 hour drive with two charging stops, instead of a 5 and a half for drive with an ICE vehicle. Plus any food and bathroom stops on either trip. That gets me there with 9% charge, forcing me to charge at their house. If I can only get a level 1 plug there the R1T would charge at just ONE mile per hour. I would need 80 hours (3⅓ days!) just to get enough charge to make it to the nearest fast charger on the way home. We would probably setup a 220 outlet to do level 2 charging and get the truck to charge in about 24 hours instead. But my family is definitely in a charging desert. Give it another 5 years and it will be a different story. Some decent 150-350 kW fast chargers in Fort Wayne, New Castle, and/or Richmond would make it a lot more feasible, especially as you factor in reduced range due to cold winter conditions.

Thanks for reading along. I know it was a lot of text. I'm still passionate about Rivian and wish them all the best. I just might buy a used one in a few years once they reach my budget and the charging network matures. I'll leave you with one last, and my favorite, picture of the Rivian R1T that I took. I love the irony of an EV parked in front of a permanently closed, old-style service station done up with street art.

- Sean

Nice write up, thank you

ShawneeCreek said:

Even then, a Rivian couldn't be my only vehicle. Getting to and from my family in east central Indiana would be a 7 hour drive with two charging stops, instead of a 5 and a half for drive with an ICE vehicle. Plus any food and bathroom stops on either trip.

Food and bathroom stops can be combined with charging stops with EVs, they're basically free in terms of time. But even if you discount that, you're saving 90 minutes on the trip. How much time do you spend detouring and filling a gas car during day to day use? It's one of those time sucks that we don't pay much attention to because we've always done it, but it's real.

Love the picture at the old gas station, that's fantastic.

Keith Tanner said:

ShawneeCreek said:

Even then, a Rivian couldn't be my only vehicle. Getting to and from my family in east central Indiana would be a 7 hour drive with two charging stops, instead of a 5 and a half for drive with an ICE vehicle. Plus any food and bathroom stops on either trip.

Food and bathroom stops can be combined with charging stops with EVs, they're basically free in terms of time. But even if you discount that, you're saving 90 minutes on the trip. How much time do you spend detouring and filling a gas car during day to day use? It's one of those time sucks that we don't pay much attention to because we've always done it, but it's real.

True. I did always try and combine food and bathroom stops with charging. That just makes sense. There just aren't a lot of options right now on the possible routes between my family in Indiana and me in Bay City. Here, let me show you:

I used PlugShare to show me all the DC fast chargers of 120 kW or better in the area. I need to travel between the red Xs. I can travel either I-75 and I-69 along the west route or I-75, US-23, and I-70 along the east route. Driving time is nearly identical. The east route ends up preferred because there are zero fast charging options on I-69 between Indianapolis and Lansing. At least the east route has options in Dayton and Ann Arbor. The two stations in the Toledo area are on the toll road that is directly perpendicular to my route and don't have good restaurant options. Yes, there are a few more DC chargers along the route. But they are more like a 65 kW charge rate. They might be better for the longer food stop option though.

You make a good point about remembering all the time saved the rest of the year not filling up a car with gas every week or two. Plus the nonsense game of trying to know where the least expensive gas is at any given time. Really, I could even consider renting an ICE vehicle for the occasional trips to family.

I think part of my reluctance right now is just how drastically the range in my e-Golf drops with even mildly cold temperatures. A 50% reduction in range at just 15 degrees Fahrenheit really hurts. I think it's more a problem with the e-Golf than EVs as the e-Golf was designed for southern California and the battery does not have a liquid thermal management system. It also can't, or won't use shore power while plugged in to precondition the battery for driving. The Rivian was getting 90-95% of it's maximum range at just around freezing. And I noticed that the efficiency actually increased 15-30 minutes into the drive as the battery pack and drive unit got up to temperature.

The good news is I should have another three to four years before my wife's car is due to be replaced. I just need to fight back the rust. In that time the current crop of modern EVs should depreciate into my budget and the charging networks will continue to mature. I just need to be patient.

- Sean

Fair points on the route you're taking.When the Tesla network opens to non-Teslas, there are two Suoerchargers in Ft Wayne that will fill a hole in that map.

As for the cold weather penalty, the VW does seem to get hit harder than most. No proper battery temperature system and an inability to precondition when plugged in are definitely a problem.

Some data: 

https://www.axios.com/2022/03/04/the-cold-hard-truth-about-electric-vehicles-in-winter

You're adding content faster than I can keep up!  Awesome. 

I like the picture of the two trucks in the garage. 

You mention that your local VW dealer has a charger on site. For your trip to Indiana, there are VW dealers in both Fort Wayne for West route or Perrysburg (Toledo) for the east route. Does either have a charger? 

You briefly mentioned the Audi a3 etron but didn't say why you didn't go for one.  Is it because it is a hybrid??

The VW dealer in Toledo does have a charger, but it's only a 6 kW level 2 AC charger. More useful for overnight charging than pit stops on a longer journey. Interestingly, I've heard good things about stopping to charge at the Harley Davidson dealers as another alternative. They have higher power level 2 chargers. 

The only car dealers I know of that have DC fast chargers with more than 100 kW rate are Porsche dealers.

In reply to jfryjfry :

Yeah. The A3 etron was a plug in hybrid. The full battery would get me 16 miles of full electric range in good weather, which could get me to work. But I could save even more money each month versus gas by going fully electric. And I could deal with the limited range of the first generation EVs that were in my price range for my commute and use my wife's car for longer trips.

Loved all the updates on the Rivian, and I'm enjoying the updates on the Golf, as well!

"charged for a total of 13 hours at 6kW. This cost $32.49 and got the truck to 63% charge, or about 200 miles of range in Conserve Mode"

this seems a bit expensive?   Is this the norm at public chargers?

that's the same as getting 200 miles out of a 18mpg ICE vehicle at $3 a gallon.

In reply to onemanarmy :

well, it's a truck, so 18 mpg is on par with what I see on my 3/4 ton :) Can't get diesel for $3/gallon, though...

I've found the Tesla is roughly equivalent to a 40 mpg car in terms of cost when using public chargers. They're like gas stations, costs vary - and the cost per kWh can change depending on how quickly you're charging.

ShawneeCreek said:

I think part of my reluctance right now is just how drastically the range in my e-Golf drops with even mildly cold temperatures. A 50% reduction in range at just 15 degrees Fahrenheit really hurts. I think it's more a problem with the e-Golf than EVs as the e-Golf was designed for southern California and the battery does not have a liquid thermal management system.

I checked my old ownership log on corner-carvers (https://www.corner-carvers.com/forums/showthread.php?49071-VW-e-golf-ownership-log).  I estimated 1/3-40% at 12F but I also noted that pre-heating the interior improved results.  I think because the pre-heat draws down the battery, then it accepts some charge, warming it.

To Keith's point earlier, there was general concensus that 100% was not truly 4.2V/100% but I don't recall if the exact number was determined among owners.

onemanarmy said:

"charged for a total of 13 hours at 6kW. This cost $32.49 and got the truck to 63% charge, or about 200 miles of range in Conserve Mode"

this seems a bit expensive?   Is this the norm at public chargers?

that's the same as getting 200 miles out of a 18mpg ICE vehicle at $3 a gallon.

 

Well, to be specific, that charge got me 187 additional miles to a total range of 200 miles. So that makes the math a little better. But Keith nailed it, the Rivian is still a truck. It averaged around 2.0 mi/kWh, while my e-Golf averages 3.4 mi/kWh or better in the same usage conditions.

This was the first time I'd payed for level 2 AC charging, and it was at $0.43/kWh. Most of my long distance charging has been at DC fast chargers in Michigan and Ohio and they have charged between $0.40 and $0.42 per kWh. On the flip side are the level 2 AC chargers and a level 3 DC fast charger in Saginaw that anyone can use for free. You can use the PlugShare app or website to look at the chargers in your area.

As a counterpoint, when I charge at home during super off-peak hours (11 pm to 6 am during the week) on my EV-specific plan, my power company charges me about $0.16/kWh.

In reply to ShawneeCreek :

who is your electricity provider? I'm on DTE and if I charge off-peak it's more like 12 cents a kwh.

I have Consumers Energy and their Residential Nighttime Savers rate, ...and it looks like I mis-remembered the rate. Looks like it's actually 13-14 cents/kWh.

I found a couple pictures on my company phone that reminded me of more interesting things to share. The "gauge cluster" screen behind the steering wheel on the R1T is pretty simple. There is a speed readout in numbers and a 3D rendering of the truck to display lighting status like headlights, taillights, turn signals, and brake lights. Surrounding the rendering of the R1T is an animation of what the truck can see with its blind spot sensors, cameras, and radar sensors. It overlays road lines and generic car or semi truck models of the traffic surrounding the truck.

It was really interesting using this animation to get a sense of what the truck is capable of "seeing" with all the sensors. On a clear day or night with quality lane markings the truck could see the lines and vehicles really far away. But driving into the sun on a concrete highway with white lane markings the truck really struggled to detect the lane markings. And then when passing a semi in a heavy rain the truck decided that the heavy spray alongside the semi was very solid and just had to be a vehicle that I was about to crash into and rapidly slowed the cruise control.

But most interesting on the dashboard screen was the efficiency meter on the left. Like most cars, it has a numerical readout of average efficiency (fuel economy). But what the R1T also has is a running graph of instantaneous efficiency from the recent past. Something like 15-30 minutes. Driving at a steady speed on the highway the line was basically flat, with the occasional valley that corresponded to driving over a hill, aka a bridge in the flatlands around here :P. I was interested in what I saw in the picture below, the average efficiency improved over time from the beginning of a trip. I think the improvement is due to the HVAC nearing its set point and using less energy or the drivetrain reaching operating temp.

Or the graph during the fun rides I took my coworkers on. The color change is because of day mode vs night mode for the screens.

Yeah, a little less efficient driving style there.

Something I didn't mention earlier was the regenerative braking in the R1T. In most driving modes you get a choice between "Normal" or "High" regenerative braking. Normal is more aggressive than the most aggressive "B" mode in my e-Golf. And High is even more aggressive and allows full one pedal driving. When you slow to a stop in High it seems to reverse power the motors for the final slowdown and a second or two after you reach a standstill the friction brakes are engaged to hold the truck still. Honestly, I grew to really love driving in High regeneration mode. It required some recalibration of my right foot and took some practice to drive smoothly but it was nice to not need to switch pedals during normal driving.

In e-Golf news, I got this warning message on the dashboard this morning:

...umm. This car doesn't have an engine. It has a motor and that motor doesn't have oil to inspect and service. It does have a single speed gearbox and transaxle that should both have oil, but I don't think that's what is going on here. A little searching online and it seems that this is some leftover programming that VW forgot to remove from the e-Golfs. The consensus is to just reset the service reminder every time it pops up. Ok then.

Oh, and a neat note for that picture above: the four pink lights under the radio are the sensors that the head unit uses to detect your hand approaching, triggering it to increase the size of the touchscreen buttons. The lights are completely invisible to the naked eye. Neat.

- Sean