Volkswagen’s battery-powered Blue-e-motion Golf will not go on sale until late until late 2013 at the earliest, according to the company - and that's late enough to push it into the next generation of the iconic hatch.
VW has been wheeling out the Blue-e-motion for a series of drives this year - including an appearance at the recent Brighton to London Future Cars run. But engineers have admitted to Autocar that the EV family car is now sufficiently far off to make it likely that it will appear in the Mk7 Golf instead of the current Mk6.
It’s thought that an imminent platform switch is one of the reasons why the Nissan Leaf rival is so late to the market.
The current Mk6-based prototype Golf uses a 26.5kWh battery pack, marginally larger than that employed by the Leaf.
By using a three-stage (85kW, 65kW and 50kW) power output from the drive motor, VW says this prototype Golf can be coaxed into offering a range of as much as 90 miles. The driver can also select the amount of engine braking via paddle shifters.
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Re: EV Golf 'still three years away'
Do we now something so far?
http://www.inhabitat.com/2010/09/02/hyundai-to-sell-hydrogen-fuel-cell-c...
Watch these guys very carefully ,they rarely make mistakes!
There is some arm wrestling between these two concepts,Hyndai,Honda (FCX Clarity), Toyota are developing fuel cell cars very fast and have confidence in them.I don't know about European manufacturers.
Re: EV Golf 'still three years away'
It seems everyone has their statistics to establish their technology as the way forward and to refute claims of their competitor’s technology. As a consumer ultimately it’s up to you to research and make a choice your comfortable with. It sounds like your firmly entrenched in the hydrogen is the way forward camp, so who am I to talk you out of it. I’m sure you must be aware of the problems with making, transporting, and storing hydrogen as I am of battery weight, energy density, etc. I would just suggest that in the near term it appears that the battery has a leg up. This is not to say that hydrogen could not over take it in the future. Neither you nor I have any idea of all the research that is currently being investigated and how it could influence the outcome. You realize of course that fuel cell car is still an electric car and you can still use the same wind/solar to power it, so if you can solve the weight/energy density problem why bother with hydrogen?
Re: EV Golf 'still three years away'
My problem with this topic is that I have never read face to face comparison for cost-benefit of these technologies,from any relevant study. From what I've read, plug- in EV could prove wrong in long terms.Can you estimate how much it will cost you,monthly or annually with this electricity prices. You can be sure that shortly after EV are sold in big numbers,the governments will sense blood and the price will go up, it happened with diesel and LPG,at least in my country it did.
The information from the link you provide is very good and promising, but allow me to think that the combination of solar/wind source of hydrogen and fuel cell cars could be much better solution with solving the present shortcomings.
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/fcv_benefits.shtml