Category Archives: Volkswagen

News and reviews of Volkswagen electric cars (including plug-in hybrids).

Volkswagen Awards Success – Passat GTE

Volkswagen is beginning 2016 with victories in a brace of influential industry honours.

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Today (13 January) Volkswagen is receiving two trophies at the renowned What Car? Awards in London with success for both the Passat Estate GTE (Best Electric Car) and new Touran (Best MPV). Meanwhile, the Volkswagen up! takes a ‘price point’ honour in the publication’s Best City Car class.

The class wins in the respected automotive awards – now in their 39th year – continue a positive start to the New Year for the brand in the UK which began with a category victory for the Golf R in The Sunday Times’ Top 100 Cars.

Scoring a win in the Electric Car ‘Best Buy £20,000-£40,000’ category, as well as taking overall honours in the Electric Car class, the expert What Car? judges said of the Passat Estate GTE:

“This really is the kind of hybrid you could use every day without even thinking of it as an EV.

“The Passat GTE mixes a 1.4-litre turbocharged petrol engine with an electric motor and VW’s six-speed DSG automatic gearbox, and it shifts between the two power sources smoothly. The interior quality is every bit as good as on other Passats, there’s enough room for five adults to sit in comfort, and our preferred edition, the Estate, has a boot that’ll take all but the largest loads.

“Best of all, the Passat Estate GTE makes a great potential company car choice thanks to its official CO2 emissions of just 39g/km and a benefit-in-kind tax rate of 5%. It’s easily the best family hybrid we’ve seen to date.”

Awarding the Passat Estate GTE overall honours in its class, the judges added:

“It feels like the sort of executive car that you could drive to and from work on electric power, then turn into a carry-all family car to travel the length of the country at weekends. It has space, a beautifully finished cabin, and succeeds in integrating its technology so well that you needn’t even be aware that it’s there.”

Source: VW

Tesla Model 3 at launch (Image: K. Field/CC)

‘I Drive Electric Because I Love My Children More Than You Do’

I am the CTO of a company supporting the oil and gas industry, and also the CEO of a start-up (FuelIncluded.com) promoting the adoption of electric cars. Clearly, from at least one perspective, these industries are in direct competition. However I prefer to see them as complementary: the tension between these industries is an example of the many energy transitions we are starting to experience as a society as we move from fossil fuels to renewables, and from pollution to clean air. Having a foot in each camp gives me, I think, an interesting and exciting position from which to watch things unfold, and, to an extent, to promote a much needed change.

Smog in New York City (Image: Public Domain/Wikipedia)
Smog in New York City (Image: Public Domain/Wikipedia)

Naturally I’m a big fan of electric cars. I’ve owned one for nearly 3 years and have driven it more than 40,000 miles in that time. It charges at home either from my own solar panels or from our renewable energy supply. It charges on the motorway/freeway at Ecotricity rapid chargers which also have a renewable supply. I’m clearly sympathetic to the view that we should all be driving electric vehicles for the sake of public health and our future climate, never mind peak oil.

However, I was still shocked to receive a retweet on my Twitter feed this week that seemed to go beyond the usual debate on the pros and cons of electric cars. It showed a bumper sticker that said:

“I Drive Electric Because I Love My Children More Than You Do”

It was a bit of a shock to read so I read it again. I then moved on, meaning not to give it another thought. However, since then I’ve found myself reflecting on it. It bothered me, enough for me to want to put my thoughts on paper.

I’ve concluded that there are two issues here that caught my attention – the message itself, and the way the message was communicated.

The Message

I have a lot of sympathy with the message, …

Read more: Me on LinkedIn

VW Golf GTE plug-in hybrid

VW Golf GTE Business Lease from £390 per month


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