Say Hello To The Smarter, More Powerful VW e-Golf

Last week we were having a poke around the refreshed VW Golf range. It’s all fine and dandy with its new 1.5-litre engine and more powerful GTI models, but what if you want a Golf without one of those old fashioned internal combustion engines under the hood? You’ll be wanting the new version of the e-Golf, then.

Yes, it’s still rocking the lowercase ‘e’, because lowercase letters mean eco-friendliness, obviously. But what’s new?

First up, there’s more power to play with, the equivalent of 134bhp, up from 114. 0-62mph takes 9.6 seconds, while the range is up around 50 per cent to 186 miles according to NEDC figures.

It’s all down to an increase in battery capacity, which is now 35.8kWh up from 24.2kWh. You’re looking at a six hour charge from empty to 100 per cent from a boggo plug socket or wall box, dropping to an hour for an 80 per cent charge from a proper charging station.

Elsewhere, you’ve all the fancy tech updates seen in the rest of the range. Notably, there’s the 9.2-inch ‘Discovery Pro’ infotainment system with the party piece gesture control interface, and the 12.3-inch screen behind the steering wheel that’s essentially VW’s version of Audi’s Virtual Cockpit. Like the regular Golf it’s semi-autonomous too, able to take care of acceleration, braking and steering inputs under certain situations.

It’ll be on sale in the UK next summer, and is on display now at the LA Auto Show.