Had one of the newer VWs, never again. 22 cents per mile for dealer maintenance over 95,000 miles--and the first 36,000 miles were bumper-to-bumper. VW is as bad as the Detroit cars for quality.
You might, the 2015 Leaf I have has not lost much range (about 15%). But the dealers are a pain. The Leaf technician is never there--even when you make an appointment. Also prepaid maintenance does not cover the battery check, so it's worthless. And then there's the difference between the $36000 sticker price and the $50000 out the door price. At least with Tesla, what you see is what you get. The only reason I also have a Leaf is that Denise didn't want a big car, and in 2015 that was the only other choice.
I had a 2016 e-Golf that I leased for almost nothing. It was quick and fun to drive, never had problems, never brought it in for any service. Traded it in off lease for a model 3.
Prepaid maintenance on a Leaf? Those are usually horribly overpriced ripoff packages. We've harped on this time and time again over and over on MNL. The 1st two "required" annual battery checks are free. My local dealer charges $39 for them after the two are over. "$36000 sticker price and the $50000 out the door price"? What car are you referring to? FWIW, I leased my 1st Leaf in end of July 2013, a '13 SV w/both packages. It was a 24 month lease w/$0 down, so it came out to ($313.98 * 23 payments) + $395 disposition fee at the end --> $7616.54 total. This includes sales tax, fees and 1st year's CA registration. I bought a used '13 Leaf SV w/premium w/under 24K miles to replace it (had all 12 capacity bars, was built 5/2013) for $9,325 + tax and license. It lost its 1st capacity bar in Nov 2017 at just shy of 50K miles. It still has 11 capacity bars and I'm at past 65K miles. I'm in CA so we've got lots of Leafs and getting an appointment when a Leaf tech's on duty isn't too difficult. Back to e-Golf, we used to have more at my work and on my street. Seems like they've been getting replaced by other cars. A house that's across the street and over one from me replaced theirs w/a Bolt. Another one that was visible from my house on a connecting street seems to have replaced theirs w/some variant of the Honda Clarity (haven't looked closely to see if it's the FCEV, PHEV or BEV). One guy in my group at work has one besides maybe a dozen or two others at my work. I can't really comment on reliability of them specifically. Haven't talked to enough drivers of them. I don't recall if CR has sufficient info on them. VW reliability has never been known to be particularly good. Until there's evidence VW reliability as good as Honda or Toyota (in general), I wouldn't ever want any of their vehicles. VW isn't particularly good at electrical systems, so to get an electric car from them...
They consistently sell a few hundred eGolfs per month. Stinks of a compliance car. Monthly sales so far in 2019: 164,118, 581,400, 264 and 366. Average of about 250/month in USA.
currently, dealers in CA are taking 10k off sticker plus car is still eligible for 7500 federal tax credit.
Yes, definitely a compliance car for the US. I believe the below from Volkswagen e-Golf In Very Limited Supply In U.S. is still correct as to what staes it's available in. ""VW spokesman Mark Gillies told CarsDirect that the e-Golf is still on sale in select markets that have adopted California's ZEV requirements. They include California, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington D.C...." They sell more of them in Europe: Europe EV Sales: Renault Zoe Wins In December, Nissan LEAF Takes 2018 Title | CleanTechnica. 21.5K of them were sold in Europe in 2018.
Plus the State $2,500 rebate. This make a brand new 2019 about the same price as a used off-lease 2016 e-Golf of similar trim level. We leased a 2015 e-Golf and found it to be a good car, given the 84 mile EPA range. We never noticed any range degradation in 3 years and 24k miles. Many people prefer it to the Leaf of similar age. However, today the Leaf Plus obviously has much greater range than the 2019 e-Golf at a correspondingly higher price. 2017+ e-Golf has 125 mile EPA range since they increased the battery pack from 24kWh to 35.5kWh.