Who’s modified their EV?
Discussion
Following on from a poster in the Car Buying section being offered to buy their leased e-Golf for £13k I’ve been thinking about them again.
I am a big fan of the mk7 Golf having run a GTE for 4 years/100k so obviously the e-Golf appeals. But I can’t stand the wheels and steering wheel. So now I'm thinking about just biting the bullet and getting one and fitting GTE/GTI wheels and steering wheel.
As this is a car forum there must be a few others on here that have modded their EVs? Bonus points for pictures!!
I am a big fan of the mk7 Golf having run a GTE for 4 years/100k so obviously the e-Golf appeals. But I can’t stand the wheels and steering wheel. So now I'm thinking about just biting the bullet and getting one and fitting GTE/GTI wheels and steering wheel.
As this is a car forum there must be a few others on here that have modded their EVs? Bonus points for pictures!!
I haven’t personally, but several people on the Mini forums have changed wheels, added bigger spoilers, graphics etc and even lowered them. I can completely see why you’d do what you’re suggesting to the golf e. The only downside I can think of will be a slight reduction in range from the bigger, less aero wheels, but probably only about 5%.
There's a fair few lower powered EV varients that have the same motors and identical kerb weight (suggesting no hardware differences) as their more powerful stable-mates. I'm sure the manufacturers have locked down the power available as well as they can, but at some point surely some tuning centres will start to invest time in pulling these cars to pieces and finding out how to uprate the power.
But at present any real tuning/modding is going to be extremely limited as the cars are generally too new and expensive for people to want to mess around with. There's also not really enough on the road just yet to provide a market for companies designing kits.
I think it will definitely be very different to ICE modding as there are certain constraints and influences which are EV specific. An older EV is going to have reduced range, to some extent - so I don't imagine many people would look to 'enhance' such a car by bolting on a barry-boy-special massive rear spoiler which does nothing but add drag. In a nutshell, anything aftermarket that can be bolted to an EV old enough to be modded kinda needs to actually work aerodynamically. The same applies to changing the ride height of the car, it would be foolish as it would screw the original designs aero. But different wheels should be no issue - in fact easier than on more powerful ICE cars as EV's tend to have smaller calipers so more wheels will fit.
But at present any real tuning/modding is going to be extremely limited as the cars are generally too new and expensive for people to want to mess around with. There's also not really enough on the road just yet to provide a market for companies designing kits.
I think it will definitely be very different to ICE modding as there are certain constraints and influences which are EV specific. An older EV is going to have reduced range, to some extent - so I don't imagine many people would look to 'enhance' such a car by bolting on a barry-boy-special massive rear spoiler which does nothing but add drag. In a nutshell, anything aftermarket that can be bolted to an EV old enough to be modded kinda needs to actually work aerodynamically. The same applies to changing the ride height of the car, it would be foolish as it would screw the original designs aero. But different wheels should be no issue - in fact easier than on more powerful ICE cars as EV's tend to have smaller calipers so more wheels will fit.
Edited by TheDeuce on Monday 27th March 22:40
Not much you can do with the egolf from a powertrain perspective, for obvious reasons. So cosmetics only. LED bulbs, steering wheel replacement, wireless CarPlay, anything that fits a Mk7 really. Which model year and trim are you getting? MY 2017 on has bigger battery annd bit more power, and SEL has WAY more kit than the relatively spartan SE.
Bigger wheels with non EV tires will have a fairly significant negative impact on range. But better tires do make a big improvement to the handling and overall traction. It’s a pretty tidy handler with grippier tyres as it has very favorable weight distribution. Very chuckable. Putting flush fit spacers on the wheels improves the look of the standard wheels considerably as it fills out the arches much better, making the wheels look bigger. They’re still 16”, so they’re not actually ‘that’ small. They’re just very recessed in the arches as standard which isn’t good for looks. You can also get lowering springs, but they need to be egolf specific due to the different weight distribution of the egolf over an ICE one.
Overall great little cars that suit city and daily life magnificently. Very happy with ours and feel no compulsion to ‘upgrade’ to an ID3 as other than a better range (which for us is irrelevant), it wouldn’t do anything else notably better.
Bigger wheels with non EV tires will have a fairly significant negative impact on range. But better tires do make a big improvement to the handling and overall traction. It’s a pretty tidy handler with grippier tyres as it has very favorable weight distribution. Very chuckable. Putting flush fit spacers on the wheels improves the look of the standard wheels considerably as it fills out the arches much better, making the wheels look bigger. They’re still 16”, so they’re not actually ‘that’ small. They’re just very recessed in the arches as standard which isn’t good for looks. You can also get lowering springs, but they need to be egolf specific due to the different weight distribution of the egolf over an ICE one.
Overall great little cars that suit city and daily life magnificently. Very happy with ours and feel no compulsion to ‘upgrade’ to an ID3 as other than a better range (which for us is irrelevant), it wouldn’t do anything else notably better.
Edited by dvs_dave on Tuesday 28th March 15:21
TheDeuce said:
There's a fair few lower powered EV varients that have the same motors and identical kerb weight (suggesting no hardware differences) as their more powerful stable-mates. I'm sure the manufacturers have locked down the power available as well as they can, but at some point surely some tuning centres will start to invest time in pulling these cars to pieces and finding out how to uprate the power.
The Mercedes B series EV has a Tesla motor, supplied with software from Tesla to detune it to 178bhp. Mercedes had a share in Tesla at the time so there was some shared parts between Mercedes and Tesla (Tesla got the Mercedes column stalks, probably along with other less visible stuff). Aging Wheels mentioned it in his video a month ago as he's putting 2 full power 450bhp Tesla motors into an old Ford Escape (Maverick) as a test car for his bus project.Edited by ajprice on Wednesday 29th March 09:45
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