For a while now, Volkswagen has lurked somewhere at the back of the class with their electric vehicle line-up. The e-up! was commonly considered too expensive, while the e-Golf offered little over the Nissan Leaf and suffered from less adopted CCS infrastructure. When launched, it’s 118-mile official NEDC range wasn’t significant enough to put it on the map. Since then, Nissan has updated the Leaf to offer increased range with the 30kWh battery and BMW has updated the i3 with a 33kWh battery. Renault has gone the extra mile and updated the Zoe with a 44kWh battery, so the trend is clear that manufacturers believe bigger batteries will aid EV sales.
Volkswagen, on the other hand updated the e-up! but neglected to offer a battery upgrade. We’re fine with that, as we still believe 100-miles on our congested roads is ample range and the vast majority of e-up! owners will operate within that.
The e-Golf, on the other hand, is a different beast. It needs to grab some attention, as it’s a fine example of an EV – luxuriously smooth, well thought out, refined and efficient. With that in mind, Volkswagen will launch the next e-Golf with a 300km range. Sources close to the company have confirmed that it will be launched at the LA Auto Show, which opens its doors to the public on 17th November 2016.
However, it is not yet clear whether the car will be offered alongside the older model, like Nissan and Renault have done with the Leaf and Zoe respectively nor has it been confirmed what size the new battery is. We suspect that to achieve the official 300km (186 mile) range, a ~35kWh battery will be used.
