Long-termers

3 179 km 15,09 kwh/100 km

What’s the one thing (besides price and a certain state-owned utility I won’t mention) that seems to put many South Africans off the idea of electric vehicles? Yes, that's right: range anxiety.

It is, of course, a legitimate con‐ cern, particularly for a population raised on a diet of long-distance ex‐ cursions. So, what would you con‐ sider an acceptable range? The ob‐ vious answer would be comparable to what is possible with a combus‐ tion-engine equivalent.

The E-golf is not yet there. In fact, the Wolfsburg-based firm claims the electric hatchback’s “practical” range is somewhere between 170 and 230 km … al‐ though with a bit of effort, I found it possible to travel up to 275 km between charges.

As battery technology ad‐ vances, the average EV’S cruising distance will rise. For now, though, I’ve been exploring various meth‐ ods of eking out every last kilo‐ metre from the 35,8 kwh battery.

There is certainly some lowhanging fruit, such as making lib‐ eral use of the regenerative-brak‐ ing function. In the E-golf, the re‐ cuperative effect is strong enough to allow for one-pedal driving, a surprisingly intuitive method that renders the conventional brakes largely superfluous.

I have settled into a routine of toggling to the eco+ driving mode when clipping along at town speeds; torque falls from 290 N.m to 211 N.m, throttle sensitivity is reduced and maximum speed is limited to 90 km/h. In addition, the air-con is disabled (no hardship in winter months), although the fan function remains.

It is wise to keep a close eye on tyre pressure since under-inflated items lead to added rolling resist‐ ance. I’ve also become acutely aware of the energy requirements of basic ancillary controls; for ex‐ ample, select the heating function for the side mirrors and you im‐ mediately shed 2 km of range.

the joys of one-pedal driving

avoiding power-sapping ancillaries