So now I’m on Day Two of eWeek. I’ll tell you what I love about this all-electric eGolf:
*it zooms around like a go-kart (very much the first gen Mini Cooper on harmless steroids)
*the immediate torque is a thing of beauty (tires may be skidding)
*I’ve got no ozone depleting guilt as I smoke it through the glorious canyons of LA
However:
*the charging gauge sits where a tachometer is normally, so I keep wondering what the hell is “blue lining” and why am I constantly at 6,000 rpms?
*there’s just something…off. On my drive home last night, I figured it out. It’s the Beastie Boys.
It was 10pm & I was at a light on PCH enjoying some old school rap. Then, a CL63 AMG pulls up beside me. Then the light turns green and with a thunderous chorus that only a twin-turbo’d v8 can deliver, the Mercedes speeds away leaving me, my Golf and the Beastie Boys behind. Then it hit me. The eGolf is the automotive equivalent of the Beastie Boys. It’s great, it’s fun and I will always be a hardcore fan, but they’re never going to have as much soul as say Eric B, Rakim or 2Pac. I’ll always have a copy of Licensed to Ill or Paul’s Boutique at the ready but none of those boys can call me “bitch” in a way that I would find flattering. The difference is soul.
Electric cars are awesome, but they don’t have soul. The soul of the car isn’t the steering wheel, the tires or the dash, it’s the engine. And that engine is going to have a hard time getting to your soul if it’s a battery. Of course, we don’t need soul every day. It’s something we crave when the kids are away, the freeway is open and the coast is clear. Is that an excuse to spend the majority of our time stuck in traffic watching the gas gauge plummet and smelling our own smoke? Probably not.
I think the future is something like this one. We have an electric car for the daily drive. Then, if you’re someone who needs the big swinging balls of a v8 or a v12, you’ve got a classic, soul-filled ride for weekends. And based on what I’ve driven to date, the one I want to be my Beastie Boy is the eGolf.
More on why it’s awesome tomorrow…