This weekend my wife wanted to go to Los Angeles for the weekend. While we did the Star Tour and some of the tourist type things, one of the reasons for me to go was to drive a couple of EV’s.

Living in Arizona and not a C.A.R.B. State I can’t just go down to the local dealer and test drive any EV. Even the EV’s like the Focus and Benz really don’t ship many cars to non CARB States.

So here is my take on the e-Golf. It’s a really nice car. It drives like a Golf. Nice tight handling, nice ride and quite. It has a very tight turning radius. There is no torque steer like the Focus or Rav4 EV.

You can find the main differences on the V.W. website but here are the main ones.

SE. Cloth seats, no nav and slow charging (3.6kW) even on level 2 and no DC charging.

None of these things would stop me from buying the $7k cheaper vehicle if the only places I needed to charge was work or home. If you don’t need to add range quickly and the 70-80 miles of range is all you need then go of it.

With one exception, and for me it’s a big exception. It doesn’t have cruise control.  If you want to get the best range out of car then a cruise control is the best way to get it.

A few other things it missing besides the luxury upgrades. There are no steering wheel controls at all. No phone or radio controls at all.

I does interface with Apple Car Play and Google ver nicely. So there really is no need for the onboard navigation or any of the other proprietary radio garbage of most automakers.

If my choice was a Nissan Leaf S or the e-Golf SE I think I would choose the e-Golf. If I could buy a Leaf SV or SL vs the e-Golf SEL, I would buy the e-Golf SEL.

I still think the Ford Focus EV is still the best value out there for what you get but it does have its drawbacks.

If you are in the market for an EV and live in a State or near a State where the e-Golf is sold it’s definitely worth checking one out. I think you will like it.

It has plenty of room for a 6 footer in the front seats. A couple of kids in the back or an adult or two for a short ride to get lunch.

If you also want a peppy little car to zip around in that fits in some tight spaces and can cram a bunch of cargo in the back with the seats down this car might be for you.