Everything’s easy once you’re used to it, so I try not to mention how long I normally spend figuring out the touch screen in cars, even though that accounts for roughly a third of my life. The Golf GTE (Gran Turismo Electricity) is brilliantly intuitive. Its technology is remarkable and it has five operating modes: pure electric, electric plus, battery hold, battery charge and auto hybrid. If they hadn’t managed to mask all that and make it easy to use, I would still be sitting in the car right now, waiting to move.
The battery life display is a bit boastful and unrealistic, constantly claiming 16 miles and going six, though obviously that doesn’t matter in a hybrid that you can just switch to battery charge (unlike next week: a little electric-car cliffhanger for you there). This exaggeration – the claimed combined cycle is a preposterous 166mpg, which I didn’t get anywhere near – is softened by ridiculous riders telling you that you make your own bed with your “driving style, speed, use of additional electrical consuming equipment, outside temperature, number of people in the car, driving style selection and topology”. What they really mean to say is, “There must be a way to guesstimate hybrid range, but we don’t yet know it.”
The electric acceleration has slightly more bounce in it than I’m used to: in parking manoeuvres, I often went maybe 20cm further than I was expecting. If I’m honest, I enjoyed the petrol drive fractionally more than the pure electric or the electric plus. It was simultaneously more predictable yet more exciting, genuinely sporty and curve-hugging, and it made the proper amount of noise. The car overall has a solid enough build that it’s quite quiet, but I still find the silence of electric-only eerie.
And yet it darts elegantly, nippy and controlled. It is the first hybrid I’ve met with a cute plug hole. I must also be the first dolt on Earth who mentions this before getting to the awe-inspiring emissions: 39g/km, or roughly what you’d emit if you walked down the road smoking a cigar made of coal.
The cockpit is self-explanatory, especially to the VW faithful, but with enough glamour to make you feel as though you’ve departed from your safe old Sharan. The sound system is brilliant (eight speakers!), the blue stitching fancy and the instrument cluster futuristic, especially when it glows. The exterior is really something, especially in white: youthful but not childish, and it looks ready for anything. It’s a car to be proud of, across a whole range of events (imagine, for brevity, a club night for environmentalists under the age of 25). The only thing is that it’s pricey – it’s hard to imagine the person who could afford it who wasn’t so grown up that they’d already grown out of having fun and bought a Prius. So now we’re looking for an environmentalist under 25, who is an entrepreneur or extremely spoilt. I’m sure such people exist.
Price £33,755
Top speed 138mph
Acceleration 0-62mph in 7.6 seconds
Combined fuel consumption 166mpg
CO2 emissions 39g/km
Eco rating 10/10
Cool rating 8/10
Original Article http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jun/27/volkswagen-golf-gte-hybrid-car-review
The battery life display is a bit boastful and unrealistic, constantly claiming 16 miles and going six, though obviously that doesn’t matter in a hybrid that you can just switch to battery charge (unlike next week: a little electric-car cliffhanger for you there). This exaggeration – the claimed combined cycle is a preposterous 166mpg, which I didn’t get anywhere near – is softened by ridiculous riders telling you that you make your own bed with your “driving style, speed, use of additional electrical consuming equipment, outside temperature, number of people in the car, driving style selection and topology”. What they really mean to say is, “There must be a way to guesstimate hybrid range, but we don’t yet know it.”
The electric acceleration has slightly more bounce in it than I’m used to: in parking manoeuvres, I often went maybe 20cm further than I was expecting. If I’m honest, I enjoyed the petrol drive fractionally more than the pure electric or the electric plus. It was simultaneously more predictable yet more exciting, genuinely sporty and curve-hugging, and it made the proper amount of noise. The car overall has a solid enough build that it’s quite quiet, but I still find the silence of electric-only eerie.
And yet it darts elegantly, nippy and controlled. It is the first hybrid I’ve met with a cute plug hole. I must also be the first dolt on Earth who mentions this before getting to the awe-inspiring emissions: 39g/km, or roughly what you’d emit if you walked down the road smoking a cigar made of coal.
VW Golf GTE
Price £33,755
Top speed 138mph
Acceleration 0-62mph in 7.6 seconds
Combined fuel consumption 166mpg
CO2 emissions 39g/km
Eco rating 10/10
Cool rating 8/10
Original Article http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jun/27/volkswagen-golf-gte-hybrid-car-review
