Joined
·
9 Posts
Recently completed 3-year lease on 2015 e-Golf (SEL, base model)
Now Leasing 2018 Bolt EV (LT + comfort & DC-chargeup)
Overall, the e-Golf drove incredibly well. It felt smooth, substantial, and enjoyable to drive up until its last turn into the dealer. The Bolt has some hefty tires to replace, but I'm firmly entrenched in the EV world now. Decision to get a Bolt was pretty simple: at present, nothing compares. We did hesitate and had a gut check on whether GMs lobbying for the CAFE standards roll-back should drive us away. We evidently came to peace with that and have now made the Chevy plunge. Of note, this is literally the first American car for either my wife or me, and neither of us is spring chickens. Congrats to GM for getting this to market, now don't f' it up.
Besides range limit on the e-Golf (we averaged 4.4 mi/kW with max range ~ 105 mi on the 24kWh pack) its primary failing is traction (dangerously loose with any moisture). So far, the Bolt appears better in this regard. We had hoped to hold out for the 2018 e-Golf (European model has 180 mi range), but with a Fall release (if at all), we are now quite happy with the Bolt. The lease deal we found in MD was OK. Of note, we shopped between four local dealers and received wildly varying offers. None were as good as the reported online deals that I've seen of late, but acceptable in the end. One thing that baffled me was that even when I told a dealer what their competitors offered (even showing the essential breakdown) they wouldn't even come within 20%. Crazy to think that they can do business at all in this way in this era.
So far, we are pleasantly surprised with the easy and seemingly reliable charging features on the Bolt. I've seen some forum complaints about the interface/features, but coming from the e-Golf world where you had to log into their glitchy web portal to set timers every darned night, well the Bolt is a dream. It has obvious range and performance advantages over anything currently available, and appears to be in the pole position in the EV world for a good while. Of course, with a lease, I hope to see things evolve for the better. and perhaps one of the new battery techs (silica structured Li, especially) will be viable and available when our Bolt lease expires.
I pleasantly noted before purchase the robust community of enthusiastic Bolt owners. The e-Golf community thinned pretty quickly after the 2016 release and became understandably manic as negative VW news emerged and future EV models became less than promised. Nonetheless, the e-Golf online community was very helpful on a few important issues (timed charging challenges, etc) over the course of that lease. Naturally, I look forward to really digging into the shared knowledge about the Bolt through this forum. I wish the same existed for our Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV, which seems to have almost no online community resources at present. I'll give a shout out to the Outlander here, however: a tremendous 4WD plug-in so far in my experience. Since Mini has discontinued their Countryman E PHEV, the Outlander is the only 4WD/AWD PHEV on the market. Note to eco-conscious skiers like us.
Cheers,
Tim
Now Leasing 2018 Bolt EV (LT + comfort & DC-chargeup)
Overall, the e-Golf drove incredibly well. It felt smooth, substantial, and enjoyable to drive up until its last turn into the dealer. The Bolt has some hefty tires to replace, but I'm firmly entrenched in the EV world now. Decision to get a Bolt was pretty simple: at present, nothing compares. We did hesitate and had a gut check on whether GMs lobbying for the CAFE standards roll-back should drive us away. We evidently came to peace with that and have now made the Chevy plunge. Of note, this is literally the first American car for either my wife or me, and neither of us is spring chickens. Congrats to GM for getting this to market, now don't f' it up.
Besides range limit on the e-Golf (we averaged 4.4 mi/kW with max range ~ 105 mi on the 24kWh pack) its primary failing is traction (dangerously loose with any moisture). So far, the Bolt appears better in this regard. We had hoped to hold out for the 2018 e-Golf (European model has 180 mi range), but with a Fall release (if at all), we are now quite happy with the Bolt. The lease deal we found in MD was OK. Of note, we shopped between four local dealers and received wildly varying offers. None were as good as the reported online deals that I've seen of late, but acceptable in the end. One thing that baffled me was that even when I told a dealer what their competitors offered (even showing the essential breakdown) they wouldn't even come within 20%. Crazy to think that they can do business at all in this way in this era.
So far, we are pleasantly surprised with the easy and seemingly reliable charging features on the Bolt. I've seen some forum complaints about the interface/features, but coming from the e-Golf world where you had to log into their glitchy web portal to set timers every darned night, well the Bolt is a dream. It has obvious range and performance advantages over anything currently available, and appears to be in the pole position in the EV world for a good while. Of course, with a lease, I hope to see things evolve for the better. and perhaps one of the new battery techs (silica structured Li, especially) will be viable and available when our Bolt lease expires.
I pleasantly noted before purchase the robust community of enthusiastic Bolt owners. The e-Golf community thinned pretty quickly after the 2016 release and became understandably manic as negative VW news emerged and future EV models became less than promised. Nonetheless, the e-Golf online community was very helpful on a few important issues (timed charging challenges, etc) over the course of that lease. Naturally, I look forward to really digging into the shared knowledge about the Bolt through this forum. I wish the same existed for our Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV, which seems to have almost no online community resources at present. I'll give a shout out to the Outlander here, however: a tremendous 4WD plug-in so far in my experience. Since Mini has discontinued their Countryman E PHEV, the Outlander is the only 4WD/AWD PHEV on the market. Note to eco-conscious skiers like us.
Cheers,
Tim