Volkswagen Golf GTE Review: Fantastic Yet Confused Performance Hybrid
Introduced in the last generation, the Volkswagen Golf GTE provides a very appealing recipe: an economical engine combined with an electric motor to provide plenty of performance when you put the 2 together. So does it actually work?
The new Volkswagen Golf GTE is an especially interesting car to choose if you’re living in a country with heavy taxes on engine sizes and CO2 emissions. As low as 26 grams of CO2 per kilometer on paper.
In terms of looks it’s very similar to the base Golf with the addition of more aggressive air intakes and this cool blue stripe going through the front of the car. Foglights are also very cool and I suspect it will get the occasional misuse by someone trying to look extra cool.
At the back, apart from the GTE badge there’s not much going on.
But the wheels and red brake callipers look properly nice! Would be even cooler if those were blue to match with the whole GTE vibe!
Compact engine
The petrol engine is a 1.4L 4 cilinder producing a nifty 150 hp and 250 Nm’s of torque. Which is actually very nice for day to day traffic but not really worthy of the GT badge. That’s why the car also has a 95 hp electric motor hooked up to the drivetrain which ups the combined output to 245 hp and a whopping 400 Nm’s of torque. This pushes the car to 100 kmh in 6.7 seconds. Proper performance specs for a nifty hatchback.
The car can also drive fully electric for about 40 km up to a speed of 130 kmh which is pretty neat for the daily commute. Plug it in at work and after a little under 4 hours the car is fully charged once again.
Driving it in hybrid mode works amazing, the engine does most of the work whilst the electric motor will help give that little push, slowing down the engine shuts off and initial acceleration is performed purely electric, driving uphill and the electric motor will compensate for the extra power the petrol engine is supposed to deliver.
And a very, very important piece: it all feels natural. You can never tell when the car switches from petrol to electric power without consulting the dashboard. Everything happens so quiet and without any noticeable vibrations. Same goes for the energy recovering brake pedal feel. You can’t tell the difference between initial electric motor regeneration and actually braking.
And depending on the distances you drive every day, you can get it lower than the claimed fuel consumption of 1.1 L/100 km. In reality, I do quite a lot of kilometers but I still managed to get the average consumption as low as 3.5 L/100 km
Flies on backroads
The GTE is obviously the hybrid brother of the Golf GTI. On paper it certainly has the power to claim that title but it also needs to handle properly.
The hybrid Golf GTE’s chassis is very well dampened. A good balance between daily driving and the occasional sporty driving. It is never too hard to become uncomfortable or too soft that it feels like it’d fall over in a corner. Steering is a bit light but you’re never guessing where the front wheels are pointing at. Turn in is good and so is the stability.
However that traction issue we’ve talked about before is also an issue here when exiting a corner. Unless you really roll into the power only after the wheels are fully straight again, the traction control will interfere massively to the point it spoils the fun of driving. Since it holds so well in the corners I think it’s mostly due to the lack of a locking differential like the GTI has.
There’s just too much torque combined for the electronics to handle the power.
It’s amazingly fast but the traction interference really messes up the fun and sporty part the car should have wearing that GT badge.
Touch based interior
Inside there’s a digital dash with a separate digital infotainments screen, sporty retro looking seats with blue accents. The steering wheel feels nice but the buttons on it don’t. Look I know there’s this trend of wanting to make everything a touch based surface. Maybe it’s more cost efficient this way but sometimes it’s just too much. The buttons on the steering wheel are way too sensitive. I’ve had multiple times that I pressed the cruise control button a little too hard and it shoots me 10 kmh up instead of 1 kmh. Same for the volume control on the steering wheel that if you swipe it blasts the stereo on full.
The same is for the infotainment. There’s a lot of menus to go through to access the sport ESP for example. And when using the lower part of the touch screen you might accidentally change the A/C temperature.
Don’t get me wrong, most of it works perfectly as it should but there’s just a few places where they went a little too far on the touch front (or the sensitivity of it) and it was a bit frustrating from time to time.
So should you get one?
If you’re looking for a sporty hatchback, then not really unless it really needed a better tire. And although I’ve had some complaints about the GTE. As a daily driver and as a hybrid, it’s an amazing car and an amazing hybrid which outperforms competitors by how smooth everything works as one. Really, it just feels like 1 powertrain, not 2 separate pieces pulling on a rope.
Combine this with the great build quality you get from any VW product (more tests here) and you have a good place to spend a lot of time in. And it may to be the perfect GT golf but I’ve still had some laughs from the occasional rolling pull.
It’s the perfect hybrid with just that little extra power.
