125,000mi e-Golf Battery Health Check! Degradation Test On My Cheap Electric 24kWh Volkswagen Golf 

70% health and a well-balanced battery after 200k Kilometers and estimated 2,700 cycles. It doesn't even have liquid thermal management! I'd say that's about as good as it gets.

OMG REALLY?? Your going to do all that work and NOT replace the 12V battery? That's the FIRST item on the fix list! LOL

I think there's a safety recall for the trim around the gearshift. The metal can cut your hand so be sure to mention it to your VW dealer if you take it to get checked out. It's campaign 34J7/34L9 I commented this previously, but posting again just for visibility.

These short range EVs are fantastic 2nd vehicles. For many they can cover 90% of the driving.

Since the pack was only 20kWh, 125,000 miles is the equivalent amount of cycles to an 80kWh battery with 500,000 miles. Not too bad!

I bet your old 12v is drawing a lot more power than you would expect via the dc/dc converter. Your range will probably improve after replacing the 12v.

Fixing that 12v battery will get rid of the few weird bugs. VWs hate having a weak battery. The traction control issues and regen issues you were having were likely due to the poor alignment. The alignment being fixed cleared the codes after their multi-trip detection number was bypassed, where they could self clear.

Nice x-mas-greetings from Germany. It's nice to see that You appreciate our old cars. This is sustainable. At the end of the day You got the Golf for the price of an average e-bike. So it is okay that You have a range of an e-bike.

Well, considering on avg 18kWh/100 and 200k kilometers... we're talking over 1600 cycles on that battery. So for those old cars that's pretty amazing. I could easily imagine the newer models with more experience of the manufacturers and bigger size of the batteries to get 500k+ out of most EVs.

Great video. The E golf is an extremely popular car in Denmark. In 2020 VW dropped the prices on it and it had no taxes on it. (Normal petrol cars have 150% tax on top of the cars value). So in USD equivelant it was probably around 15k new in 2020 And that was for 36.4 kWh with the possibility of cheap leather interior, full LED headlights and dynaudio sound

Change the 12 v battery, you have those faults because off bad battery.

You know, I should be bored with some of your videos, but I never am. You always throw in interesting things showing how much of an expert you really are.

One thing I can say about the traction control, if the steering wheel was off center the steering angle sensor would definitely cause the traction control to turn on, that will reduce power and disable regeneration. Another thing to consider is an EV heater uses a decent amount of energy, it reduces range by 1 mile per 5 miles, 20% reduction in range. I have a 2015 Smart fortwo electric, 18kwh battery, 65 miles range and 60,000 miles. Amazing little car ❤ P.S. I love the VW Golf and wish I would have found one before ❤

when someone tells you its a $3500 ev and only the wheels cost that much :D

125,000 miles with EPA range of 83 miles means the battery went through 1,506 equivalent full cycles. If my 2018 Model 3 RWD went through that many cycles, it would have covered 466,867 miles. 31% degradation actually isn't that bad for that many cycles. I leased a 2015 e-Golf LE (the one US market variant that came with steel wheels) and extended it two months until we took delivery of our Model 3. The e-Golf was a good car for what it was - a short range compliance car. With home charging, it did everything we needed.

I think they threw the baby out with the bathwater when they designed the iD3. There is so much they could have taken from this car (esp. interior) that just 'works' ergonomically and looks great.

GlaLd to Alyssa back on camera. Your early road trips in the Model 3 are still some of my favorite videos. I really like the look of the e-golf. It's a neat little car but the tiny battery is too small. Even if the battery was 45-50 kw it would be remarkably more useful. Love the videos on these inexpensive cars, though.

Those wheels 😍 I love my 2020 VW e-Golf, but will be happy replacing it in 2025 with a Volvo EX30

I got a 2019 E-golf about 6 months ago and I love it.

Love your channel and enthusiasm! You sound like I do when I first buy something, it goes from a few things to an almost complete overhaul quickly.

I've had the 2016/24kW and now in the 2019/36kW. My 16 had about 8% degradation at 56K miles with lots of DCFC. My 19 sees far less DCFC and has about 5% degradation at 34K. These egolfs are great cars. Very safe, fun to drive and economical. I use my truck to go farther that 150 miles.

a year ago, there was a guy with egolf 20kwh version and over 260.000km (162.000 miles) almost only AC charging, he said that he didn't notice any major degradation, and he was very very happy wit the car...

Alyssa seems like a reasonable person and views these EV's like a tool that either makes the job easy or it doesn't. A 50 mile range car fills a very narrow job scope.

Loving the wheels,good video guys ,Merry Christmas from the UK👍😉💪

You can fit cruise control on a golf. It's just a case of changing the stalk for the one with the cruise buttons and then coding it in the ecu, really cheap and easy.

I don't know if it's already been mentioned, but there is a Volkswagen Service document with some interesting information (e.g. when balancing is done) about the e-Golf. It's called SSP530 (Selbststudienprogramm 530).

It was nice to have Alyssa join on one of these technical videos!

Really enjoying this series of episodes. Thank you for sharing Kyle, Alyssa. Looking at purchasing either an old e-golf or e-up ...

Great test. I reallly agree on that everyone keeps track on their own degradation from when the EV is new. I have done that on my two e-trons. Logging every long trip in excel with focus on available battery. It gives a nice graph and you learn how it fluctuates based on temrpature, speed ++

Those wheels look great!

I live in Colorado Springs and actually considered buying that car. I owned a 2015 and currently own a 2017. When I saw the screenshot of the dash, I did the math and came up with at least 40 % degradation and decided to pass. I’m glad I did considering all the other problems.

I recently bought a 2018 VW Passat GTE hybrid. I use the EV mode around town and the ICE part between cities. The menu's are pretty much the same as your VW. I had to get used to it like you did in the videos. I am hoping that by the time my small battery dies I can get a replacement with a much larger range if they manage to use like Amprius cells for the replacement unit. Love the VW build quality on mine (all leather/digital dash/pano roof). I did consider a used Model S but in the end decided against it due the expected rapid depreciation with new models and battery ranges that are about to hit the market in the coming years. Greetings from Amsterdam!

Golf’s/GTIs put a smile on everyone’s face. I laughed as Kyle got excited about resetting the service notification.

Keep up the good work

🎁 That's a good Christmas present!

Y'all really should stop at O'Reilly's and get a new 12-volt battery it would help a lot. $250 bucks.

it is nice to get alyssa's viewpoint/thoughts

Thanks for sharing.

I have lost about 9% of original capacity (assuming 31.5 kWh usable when new) at 64,000 miles on my 2017 e-Golf. It lost about 4% since 20,000 miles.

Fun! Thanks.

Had a 2015 e-golf for 30k miles and loved it as a city/commuter car.

love this car

It would be awesome to see the restoration being done, on this German Pearl,, 👍🌟🌟‍‍👍‍‍

First thought was excellent wheel choice.

Interesting test!

would be a nice project to replace old cells with brand new latest gen LFP cells

Great video! For me personally, a 75km range is good enough for 90% of my yearly driving. My home and business are roughly 5km apart - so I can go there, even drive to get lunch, then drive back to work and home just fine. My nearest supermarket, hardware stores and even closest friends are all within a 3km radius of my home. Even in its form, this Golf would be useful for me. In addition to having a garage at home, I have access to fast chargers at my closest shopping malls.

Those wheels look sick!!!! What sort of headlights does it have? The front lights look a lot like halogen reflector housings but surely they wouldn't put those on an e-golf? If it indeed has halogens you could update the car with a led kit that is TUV certified in Germany for those cars (so one with a good light pattern), i believe osram and philips both make them.

Thank you for the test. That pack was really abused. I routinely get 5 mi/kWh on my e-Golf so you could get close to 65 miles if you are really careful and stay off highway.

Great running to the store or work or grammas house car. I want one!

Awsome. Please more.... Very cheap and really working: But a small bowl of fresh ground coffee (powder) over night and all smells are gone. Cheers from Switzerland

Thank You for All that you are doing for our Planet Earth.... Peace.. Shalom.. Salam.. Namaste.. 🙏🏻 😊 🌈 ✌ ☮ ❤

With that range and capacity you essentially have a gen 2 Chevy Volt without the range extender! Which is pretty good all things considered, I'd daily that thing no problem. I rarely dip into the range extender in the Volt anyway AND you can fast charge the e-Golf so...

Steering wheel was off center with bad toe alignment. I think the wheel alignment is what fixed the traction control and Regen issues

Your gonna have a helluva compliance car fleet soon!

Our e-Golf drops to 12 kWh/100 km or 5.2 miles/kWh in summer so I think you'll then be able to do more than 60 miles. When at empty the lowest cell was at 2.9V and the highest at 3.4V so there is definitely one or more weak cells in there. But typically there isn't much capacity below 3.4V so it may be less dramatic then it sounds

Cool! I like the idea of an e-Golf but never got one because of the minimal range. I actually was surprised to see it had a CCS port. I kinda figured it was old enough to have Chademo.

In the app you could see the lowest and highest cell voltage: 2.98V and 3.4V. thats some serious difference!

That's crazy because I have a 2015 e golf, with 120k miles and still get 75 miles to the charge. I've also been fast charging it twice a day for the last 3 years. My daily commute is 65 miles one way.

Good video! Since you said you maybe replace the steering wheel try looking at an used leather steering wheel with cruise control and radio buttons! WOuld be nice to put cruise on 55

I can’t wait until you do this with your R1T

Thank you! Alignment was probably screwing up individual wheel speeds…….which is critical for ESP……….And NOT caused by Sway bar pre-load🙄😂

I am also loving my e-Golf did the same with upgrading the wheels and tires. Would love to see some real world numbers on range loss from doing this as I know quite a few have as well. Would be good to see if weight or aerodynamics or sizing is the biggest factor in the loss.

Car scanner should be able to show remaining capacity in Wh. I find that more useful than SoC in %.

Not bad for a very abused vehicle with a crazy amount of battery cycles

69% nice

You need to do a full AC charge to 100% and then leave it for 12 hours so that the cells balance correctly. DC charging falses the data..

😅Alyssa has her rescues and Kyle has his.

Charges better than BZ4X😂

Nice test - had a 2016 SE that to this day still regret trading for my 2021 ID.4 AWD. Backup camera is a very common issue among all MKVII Golf's and like your example mine worked ~90% of the time, I didn't bother with trying to resolve it. Your horn not working might be resolved with replacing the horns themselves, mine had a short and replacing the fuse would give me one honk before it burned the fuse again - worth a shot to see if fuse is burned and replace it to see if you can get one honk before it burns again before you go digging in further.

You do you, but I like the factory wheels a lot more. Unique to the eGolf and very efficient.

I can tell you why the car doesn't want to move any more on 9,4% SOC Max cell voltage is at 3,45V but min cell voltage at 2,97V and that's right on the edge of unhealthy degraded for sure, but usable. I am curious what the options on swapping the battery are Also 18.3 kWh/100km is pretty much for this car. I run mine at 12kWh/100km in summer and 16 in winter with heating and cheap rims and tires. Maybe your 12V battery has a shorted cell or something and is bubbling around under the hood wasting energy

These short range EVs have less head room for degradation. In future they should phase out tax incentives for new EVs and start incentives for battery Replacements on these early EVs to keep them on the road. I replaced my Fiat with a Bolt, the Fiat still feels solid and fun to drive.

Nice wheels!

VW for the win! The rapid charging on this makes it so much more useful just a Björn has also agreed.

Watching this series from Germany is quite nice to see you driving this "tiny" car in the US and getting the feeling that Alisa is not impressed by the image of the car. I myself have a Golf 7 TFSI DSG with 80k miles from 2012. It is impressive to see that somebody was able to rip the suspension apart(Maybe US roads are worse than in Germany?). Looking forward to see what is costs you in the US to fix the suspension and minor optical issues of the car. The e motor and efficiency shall be realy good with this car and standard consumption should be at 14.0 kWh/km. So even with the small battery and the 69% remaining you can drive it well as your daily car to work and back, especially if you can charge it at home or at work. The sad story about VWs e-Golf is that there was a prototype Golf(build by Kreisel Electric) ready in 2015 with a 55,7kWh battery and fast charging up to 100 kWh... but VW did not want to buy this solution and build/sell it. This would have been a big game changer, instead they made the 35kWh battery upgrade which is ok, but too less for many people. The only reason they did so was to keep selling the gasoline cars and have an argument for the ID.3 with 58kWh. If the Golf had litteraly the "same" battery, the same charging peak and curve it would have been the better car compared to the ID.3 and as we know today it would be even less pricy to buy.

I had a brand new 2019 Kia Soul EV, and on Petro Canada 200kw chargers, it would take 69kw to about 55%, then taller of, actually top it on two 2000km road trips. We bought a 2020 Kia Soul EV (64kwh) limited, trade the 2019 with about 28K Km for the Ioniq 5. Only problem with the 2019 Soul EV is unlike the 2018 model, you could not set the maximum charge limit, so I had to use a Juicebox and set it to 80%.

I loved my egolf sel platinum. I wish I hadn't sold it.

Much more useable form factor than a Leaf. A city daily beater car means no worries. Fits in tight spaces, but hatch back with fold down rear seats means you can haul "stuff". And not much depreciation downside. Extremely low cost of ownership! Enjoy

Great Soccer Mom car, run to school & stores.

I would have done the suspension work BEFORE I got it aligned. Now you will need to align it again once the suspension work is done.

For the 12v battery I recommend pulling it out and sticking it on a NOCO genius that has the repair function (desulphurization), it should give it a new lease of life.

Love this car, perhaps because we have a 2015 eGolf with about 33 K miles.

There was a lady in the news here who bought a similar car. The electric motor died in it just as it went out of warranty period and they didn't replace it. Costs more to replace/fix than the entire car's price. I know electric cars have some quirks and ICE vehicles also suffer from issues at times but I would never buy a VW-group electric vehicle.

ABS light went off because you set tracking correctly and steering wheel is straight again. Then ABS has recalibrated and warning lights went off

Thanks guys for this range test or I guess battery degradation test. Maybe this will be my wife's choice for her EV as she doesn't like the minimalistic Tesla controls. Main driving we do is 10 miles to town and a couple to different stores then 10 miles back home so 20-25 kWh capacity is fine. Once in awhile it's 20 miles to a doctor's appointment but still no problem there.

Check the cells imbalance/voltage with the ODB device you've got?

Just passed a storage lot with a lot of hay, like really a lot! But no big deal for open ag land where a lot of cattle live. I suppose in terms of horse-and-buggy days that amount of hay (or, sorry, it may be alfalfa or another crop) would keep your going-to-town buggy fueled for a couple years maybe? Not familiar with those days but have a lot of respect for those who made their living on as little as a quarter section of grazing land.

By the way, VW windshield washing fluid plastic container is notorious to crack without any accident just with very cold and very hot weather even without using simple water instead of proper fluid which can crack it in the winter irrespectively of ICE or EV version. It just needs replacement. The 12 V battery needs replacement as well.

to remowe the smoke smell you can place a bucket with vinegar when you are not using it.

That degradation is pretty rough. I had a Ford Focus Electric that had far more capacity remaining after 8 years, although not with over 100k on the odometer. The FFE has liquid cooled batteries, IIRC the e-Golf is air cooled. Great video

The washer reservoir will crack when the wrong fluid is in there and it freezes. I hate when that happens

Hi Kyle you said that the net Capacity when new was 20 kw/h but when you look at original VW information data when the car was released in Europe the mentioned in the self study program 21.2 km/h even Bjorn just released a new video on testing a 2016 BMW i3 and he said 21 kw/h and he also said the i3 had a bit smaller battery capacity compared to the small battery e Golf anyway I love the testing I have a US spec e Golf and I love it .

Hold down the trip reset button when starting to get rid of the service inspection

Look into the 3D printed inserts for the front grill and do a video on those. I want to see if it improves range at highway speed or increases range during city driving.

I have very little degradation on my 2017 ioniq, I had a reservation on the egolf at the time, glad I went with the ioniq, it charges faster too. Terrible traction though.

Seems like you should replace the 12 volt battery before the degradation test

Alyssa, even committing a pronunciation mistake multiple time, manages to do it in a very cute gentle way, making video more watchable.

Coasting is definitely going to improve your efficiency. Think how you would ride a bicycle - using as little energy you can to maintain speed. Regen is fine for when you need to slow down - it's better than friction brakes; but you always lose some more energy with regen than with coasting. And that pickup truck was a good aero break for you ... he was helping you use less energy.

The 12v just needs to be replaced