Category Archives: Golf GTE

News and reviews on the Volkswagen Golf GTE plug-in car.

Is now the time to buy an electric or hybrid car?

December 17, 2014A3 Sportback e-tron, Ampera, Audi, BMW, e-Golf, Electric Cars, Formula E, Golf GTE, i3, i8, Kia, Leaf, Mitsubishi, Model S, Nissan, Opinion, Outlander PHEV, Renault, Soul EV, Tesla, V60 PHEV, Vauxhall, Volvo, ZOETrevor Larkum

Best cars and options explored

The future of driving appears to be electric, with Formula E in full effect, supercars adopting hybrid drive systems and range getting further all the time. Fuel powered engines may have their days numbered. But is it time to make the change to electric?

Now that the big car manufacturers are creating hybrid and electric cars we can be assured that it’s the future. And thanks to infrastructure improving all the time for charging stations range isn’t becoming such a big issue. But last year’s Tesla owners won’t get updated with the latest self-driving tech of this year’s Tesla, not a very nice reward for early adopting.

So is it still too early to adopt? Are batteries in cars suddenly going to improve to make current models a joke? We’ve looked at what going on to help give you a clearer idea of what to do.

Pure electric cars right now

The selection of pure electric cars right now isn’t huge, but it’s more than ever before and range is now good enough for day-to-day use. Prices, in the UK at least, are kept reasonable thanks to government assistance taking £5,000 off the price and offering free tax. If you offset petrol costs too you’re saving even more.

At the top end there’s Tesla with its Model S boasting all wheel drive and self-driving smarts starting at around the £50,000 mark. But this is in a league of its own with sports car performance, plus the latest model is not actually going to be in the UK until July 2015, even if you can buy yours now.

Then there are established brands like BMW, Ford, VW, Nissan and Renault all making fully electric cars at affordable prices right now.
Range, charging times, price and power

When going electric most people will be juggling these few key numbers: range, charging time, price and power.

PRICE: Firstly there’s price, at which the Renault Zoe wins by a fair margin starting at £14,000. Nissan’s Leaf can be bought from £16,500, Kia’s Soul EV is £25,000, the VW e-Golf is from £26,000, and BMW with its i3 is from £31,000.

RANGE: The range winner, from the reasonably priced cars, is the Kia Soul EV with 135 miles. In close second is the Nissan Leaf with 124 miles. Coming in behind them is the BMW i3 with a 118 mile range along with the VW e-Golf also sporting a 118 mile range, followed by the Renault Zoe with 93 miles.

Of course if you include the Tesla Model S that wins with its base model eeking out an impressive 240 miles on a charge and its top end offering 312 miles a go. But you get what you pay for.

CHARGE: This is a fairly even playing field with the cars all offering a rapid charge to 80 per cent in half an hour. Across the board it’ll cost you to upgrade your home charger for faster charging but this can result in as fast as a 3-hour charge to full.

POWER: Electric cars deliver all their torque instantly and the engine directly powers the wheels, this means they feel really nippy pulling away. The Nissan Leaf utilises 107hp to do 0-60mph in just 7 seconds making it the quickest of the lot off the mark.

The BMW i3 has 170hp for a 0-60mph time of 7.2 seconds, the Renault Zoe has 83hp for a 0-60mph time of 8 seconds, and the VW e-Golf manages 0-62mph in 10.4 seconds thanks to its 114hp motor. In last place is the Kia Soul EV with its 108bhp delivering a 0-60mph time of 10.8 seconds.

So for price the Renault Zoe wins it, but for range and power the Kia Soul EV comes out on top.

Plug-in hybrid electric cars right now

Hybrids have been around for years with the Toyota Prius leading the way with its dual-drive system. These are now more common than ever with Uber drivers using Prius as the car of choice.

But the market has grown, especially recently, with plug-in hybrids that allow drivers to charge at home so they may never need to use the fuel engine, instead reserving that for long distance journeys only.

From the Volvo V60 Plug-in and Ford Mondeo Titanium Hybrid to the Golf GTE or the BMW i3 with range extender, hybrids are fast becoming viable alternatives to single engine cars. The extra you may spend on the new technology can soon be made back in the petrol and tax savings they offer.

Range, charging times, price and power

Plug-in hybrid cars mean less of a worry about range than pure electric while also offering power and a reasonable price.

As with the Tesla we’re not going to include the likes of the McLaren P1, BMW i8, Porsche 918 and Ferrari LaFerrari as they’re all reserved for the super rich. And we’re only using plug-in hybrids as straight hybrids are fast becoming outdated in favour of the electric only options and extended range of plug-in hybrids.

PRICE: The plug-in hybrid range have all arrived at a similar time with manufacturers savvy to the government’s £5,000 contribution. For this reason they’re all very similarly priced.

The winner, by a narrow margin is the Ford Mondeo Titanium Hybrid from £25,000, with Mitsubishi PHEV GX3h from £28,250 in second and closely followed by the Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid from £28,395.

Then we have the Vauxhall’s Ampera from £29,000, Audi A3 Sportback e-tron from £35,000, BMW i3 Range Extender from £34,000 and Volvo V60 Plug-in hybrid from £45,000.

RANGE: Winning with an impressive 967 mile range is the Ford Mondeo Titanium Hybrid but it only manages around 20 miles on electric alone. Closely behind that is the BMW i3 with range extender that offers a 930-mile top end with pure electric for 105 miles, making it overall cheaper to run than the Ford. The Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid can manage up to 700 miles in one journey but loses on electric alone with just 15 miles on a charge.

Audi’s A3 Sportback e-tron can last for 585 miles with 31 of those miles on electric alone. Despite its size the Mitsubishi PHEV GX3h manages 500 miles with 32 on electric alone. Vauxhall’s Ampera eeks out 310 miles with between 20 and 50 of those miles on battery.

CHARGE: As in pure electric cars this is a fairly even playing field with the cars all offering a rapid charge to 80 per cent in half an hour. Across the board it’ll cost you to upgrade your home charger for faster charging but this can result in as fast as a 3-hour charge to full.

POWER: The Audi A3 Sportback e-tron, as the name suggests, wins this with a 0-62mph time of 7.9 seconds thanks to 204hp. The BMW i3 Range Extender model is second offering 170hp for 0-60mph in 7.9 seconds.

The Vauxhall Ampera does 0-60mph in 8.7 seconds with 148hp, despite having 178hp the Ford takes 9.2 seconds to get from 0-62mph, the Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid gets from 0-60mph in 11 seconds from 134hp, the Mitsubishi PHEV GX3h does 0-60mph in 11 seconds and has 186hp.

The winner for price is the Ford Mondeo Titanium Hybrid but the BMW i3 takes it for range with the Audi offering the most power.

Future electric and hybrid cars

The future of electric cars and hybrid machines is looking positive. Charging infrastructure is cropping up all over the country with Tesla’s Elon Musk promising to install his Supercharger network UK wide by the end of next year.

Crucially, right now, it’s possible to drive pure electric all the way from the top of Scotland to the bottom of England thanks to fast chargers along the way. It might take a little longer than petrol cars since you have to stop for half an hour to recharge, but it won’t cost as much by a long shot. So adopting right now, especially if you’re going for a hybrid, isn’t as risky as it once was.

Another issue is batteries. Developments are being made more and more regularly as car manufacturers pour money into research. But worrying about having an older battery shouldn’t be an issue as, hopefully, manufacturers will be able to swap out old for new future-proofing any car you buy now.

Next year Tesla hopes to offer a car which is nearly completely self-driving. But since that’s out of the price range of most people current electric car offerings are plenty futuristic.

If you’re already driving a car and the cost of petrol and tax are proving too much then electric or hybrid could be your way out.

Source: Pocket Lint

Volkswagen Golf GTE review and pictures

December 8, 2014Electric Cars, Golf GTE, News, Reviews and Comment, VolkswagenTrevor Larkum

What is it?

The Volkswagen Golf GTE is a plug-in hybrid version of the perenially popular family hatchback. As the badging suggests though, this is no hair-shirt rival to cars like the Toyota Prius Plug-In.

Volkswagen instead bills the GTE as the third member of its Golf GT family, joining the petrol Golf GTI and diesel Golf GTD. Knowing what we do about those models, that billing suggests this new car will be a keen performer and a fun, engaging hot hatch in a demonstrably grown-up sort of way.

Technical highlights?

The internal combustion engine is a 1.4-litre, four-cylinder turbo petrol unit, good for 148bhp, and the gearbox is a six-speed DSG. The 75kW (101bhp) electric motor sits between the two and drives through the gearbox. The hybrid drivetrain, which sends power to the front wheels only, delivers a peak output of 201bhp rather than the theoretical combined maximum of 249bhp because the power curves don’t quite converge at their peaks.

What’s it like to drive?

According to Volkswagen’s own figures, the Golf GTE is 173kg heavier than the GTI. It’ll sprint to 62mph in 7.6 seconds and top out at 138mph; those performance figures are more closely aligned to that of the 1.4 TSI model than the GTI. In its electric-only mode, it’ll cover 31 miles on a full charge.

It must be said that the hybrid drivetrain does work very well. Urban driving and electric motors, with their near-silent operation and instant torque hit, are so well matched that it’s easy to buy into the Golf GTE as a town car.

The powertrain also offers a switchable mode that ramps the energy harvesting up by such a degree that the driver needn’t bother with the brake pedal in town, although that mode is more off-putting than it is useful out on the open road. There’s a sharp edge to the way the GTE rides on city streets, which is just enough to hint at some degree of athleticism without ruining the ride comfort.

The true depth of the Golf GTE’s sporting merit depends entirely on perspective. If the point of reference is a conventional plug-in hybrid or full electric car there’ll be much to commend about the way the GTE grips securely with solid body control and good agility.

Judged as a traditional hot hatch, however, the GTE is unexciting, unrewarding and possessed of a benign chassis that collapses into understeer rather early – almost every component in the drivetrain is located ahead of the front axle line, after all.

How does it compare?

On paper it’s a deeply compelling package, but the reality is that the parsimonious fuel economy figures can only be repeated in quite particular circumstances, and in dynamic and performance terms it’s simply not in the same league as its stablemates, the Golf GTI and GTD.

It is, however, the only plug-in hybrid at this price point that holds driving enjoyment in any regard, which puts the GTE at the very top of a class of one. A Prius Plug-In is nothing like as entertaining, and Volvo’s V60 Plug-In Hybrid is more expensive and less dynamic.

Perhaps closest in spirit is the BMW i3 with the optional range-extender engine. It’s similarly priced – £33,830 before the government’s £5,000 plug-in car grant – and has similar performance with a 7.9sec sprint to the legal limit. It’s more technologically (and stylistically) interesting than the Golf, but the tall body and skinny tyres result in very different dynamics to the more conventional Volkswagen.

Anything else I need to know?

The headline 188mpg figure was achieved on the official New European Driving Cycle (NEDC) test for plug-in hybrid cars. The test is structured so that for two-thirds of its duration the subject is run in electric mode, then in hybrid mode for the remaining third of the test.

That means, then, that the Golf GTE’s petrol engine was only running for one third of the test. By extension, the owner will only replicate that 188mpg figure by running in electric mode for two-thirds of his or her overall mileage. In short, the Golf GTE will only deliver on its grand promises if the owner can plug in regularly and tends only to cover relatively short distances.

Source: Evo

Car review- GTE is an electric dream

September 20, 2014Electric Cars, Golf GTE, News, Reviews and Comment, VolkswagenTrevor Larkum

Creating a hot hatch used to be simple. Shoehorn the most powerful engine you can find into a small hatchback. Add some stiffer suspension, garnish with bigger brakes, flavour with large alloys and finally sprinkle with ‘GTI’ badges. This tried-and-tested formula has worked ever since the Golf GTI first appeared back in 1976.

However, Volkswagen didn’t stop there. Over the years the German firm has constantly pushed the boundaries of what a hot hatch is. From a turbo-diesel to four-wheel drive, fast V6 engines and even a small petrol with both a turbo and a supercharger, there has been no end to their hot-hatch tweaking. But nothing yet, has been as ambitious as this new Golf GTE plug-in hybrid.

Looking like a pumped-up GTI, the plug-in hybrid Golf doesn’t look all that different in the metal, but make no mistake this car is out to rewrite the hot hatch rulebook. Under the VW’s skin is the same hybrid powerplant as the Audi A3 e-tron that we tested on these pages back in July. That means it packs the same 150bhp 1.4-litre turbo petrol as well as a 75kw electric motor that pumps the overall output up to an impressive 204bhp.

That’s enough to give it a brisk 0 to 60mph time of just 7.6 seconds and onto a 137mph top speed while returning an 188mpg average fuel economy and just 35g/km emissions. Anyone lucky enough to run one as a company car will face an ultra-low 5 per cent Benefit-in-Kind tax bill – the kind of level that even company car drivers of conventional frugal cars can only dream of. Perhaps the most impressive aspects of this high-tech hybrid are its 31-mile electric-only range and the fact it takes just three and a half hours to charge from flat using a domestic plug socket. It can also travel at up to 81mph in electric mode alone.

All that means you could commute in the GTE without using a single drop of petrol all week, says Volkswagen. Which is why engineers had to use a petrol engine that could go for weeks without turning over. But if you do need to venture out of town at the weekend, the petrol engine will kick in and extend your range to a very reasonable 580 miles. So far, so revolutionary.

But what’s it actually like behind the wheel? Unsurprisingly, it feels like a Golf. Aside from an extra gauge where you’d normally find the rev counter (that shrinks and sits below it), the fit, finish and layout is just like the regular hatch. The only drawback we could find is that the battery cells have shrunk the boot capacity by almost a third and the rear seats no longer fold completely flat – but if you can live with that, you’re in for a treat once you’re on the move.