GolfGTIforum.co.uk
Model specific boards => Golf mk7 => Topic started by: Andy B on 02 September 2014, 22:19
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So autocar has tried one. (I didn't post this in reviews because I wanted to ask...)
If you ignore the boot size issue, doesn't this do a better job than the GTD - much more so if you've got regular journeys though 30-40mph roads?
It looks like the car has the same boot size as the R, which has always been an annoyance for me both in the Golf R and the Audi S3 as we manage to cram loads in the back of our current car (mk5 golf) and I'd not like to lose that practicality.
But for the first time, I'm a little bit tempted by a hybrid. No flat-battery worries, great range, 'better than diesel' economy on ordinary journeys, and *far* better than diesel on commuter-style journeys.
And the 'slow' charge is only 4 hours from an ordinary socket.
If we don't get a car like this, I bet the next one will be!
http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/volkswagen/golf/first-drives/volkswagen-golf-gte-first-drive-review
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I considered it before ordering the GTI, but was put off by the thought of the extra weight and the worry of that extra tech going wrong. Interesting that autocar still thought it handled well.
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Looks good. I loved the MPG
VW Claim 188mpg
Autocar got 73mpg
Nothing new there then!! :cry:
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I wonder roughly how much the thing costs to charge up each time?
I'm guessing you need the electric bit to get anything like decent MPG, but I wouldn't be surprised if the test they did to get their mileage figure wasn't actually not driving it in the way its designed to be most efficient.
I've never really looked at any hybrids before, the lentil and sandals thing isn't really me, but this looks strangely attractive... is it just because its a Golf and not some piece of hideous looking weird jap juink?
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No mention of it being a cylinder-on-demand petrol engine - that would have improved the real mpg in petrol mode by a very real 10mpg or so.
If you want to be doing the equivalent of 180mpg or thereabouts, you'd probably have to be having it in 100% electric mode for 70-80% of the time. In fact, the CO2 level of 35g CO2/km suggests that at around a quarter of the petrol model's own figures, the official cycle has this car working in electric mode for around 75% of the time.
Fine if you want to drive like a nun while doing a 30 mile round trip commute - you might hardly have to dip into the petrol side of things. Who wants 204ps on tap, knowing full well that they can only tap into a quarter of it if they want to get appreciably getter mpg than the GTD? It'll likely cost £9k more than a GTI/GTD (their "estimate" seems wildly optimistic when you see that the e-tron has a confirmed price of £34950 after subsidy - albeit with more equipment than is usually standard for an audi), or £4k after the £5k current government subsidy (funny how all these electric cars are around £5k more than they should be while that is in place. If the subsidy got pulled, they'd find a way to reduce the price so it didn't look ridiculously expensive).
£4k can buy you a lot of diesel in a typical 3 year ownership of the car, enough to do 33k miles at 50mpg (assuming current diesel prices of £6 a gallon/131p/L). Even if you are getting your electricity for free (free charging point at work?) I can't see why you'd pay the extra for the GTE over the GTD.
This car makes perfect sense in London to avoid the congestion charge, but outside London you'd be better off with a GTD when all you are trying to offset the extra cost with is fuel savings. The extra weight of the battery pack blunts the all-in GTE performance to worse than that of a GTD (just).
If you have a strong environmental conscience or you live in London you might be swayed, but if not and you only intend on keeping the car 3 years, you'd be better off with a GTD from a financial point of view, while these come at such a premium.
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Looks good. I loved the MPG
VW Claim 188mpg
Autocar got 73mpg
Nothing new there then!! :cry:
And the further you drive it on a trip, the lower the mpg will be Take this car 200 miles and the mpg all in will be around 53mpg. The petrol engine on it's own is probably good for a real 45mpg. Seems to me then that Autocar's tests were probably for around 65 miles (50:50 electric and petrol trip) if they used real-world electric pricing in their mpg calculation. Cost per mile for the average (non-economy 7) customers charging on their own domestic electricity supply is around 4.5p per mile for most electric cars or hybrids running in pure electric mode. Of course, Nissan and the like boast of 2p per mile driving because they always quote maximum range (driving like a nun, high ambient temps) and purely economy 7 charging.
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It's all a bit of a con anyway - you mention the subsidies, but also you imagine that you are going into this not paying road tax or congestion charging only to have them change their minds about that further down the line.
Also no doubt the batteries suffer exactly the same as the ones in my mobile phone do and after about a year you'll be lucky to get half the range it did on day one.
Given that in this country we've not figured out where we are going to get electricity from in the future, probably buying something which needs charging isn't a good strategy.
Fred
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Even if you are getting your electricity for free (free charging point at work?) I can't see why you'd pay the extra for the GTE over the GTD.
You can just imagine all the works electricity bills shooting up 10 fold :grin:
A guy at my wife's work has a Nissan Leaf and he was expecting just to plug it in while there!!
How does the electric / fuel part work I couldn't pick that up? If my commute is 12 miles to work and 12 back could I in theory not use any fuel at all?
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It's all a bit of a con anyway - you mention the subsidies, but also you imagine that you are going into this not paying road tax or congestion charging only to have them change their minds about that further down the line.
It would require quite a big change of policy for there to be a 'road tax' impact, as vehicle excise duty is related to the emissions of a vehicle rather than the fact that it's using the roads. This is also why bikes aren't required to pay it.
Congestion charging is another matter though - if everyone in London gets an electric car then congestion would rise and you'd assume the policy would change to take account of it.
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Bikes do pay road tax... https://www.gov.uk/vehicle-tax-rate-tables
(BTW, the Mk7 Golf GTD is actually a "low emissions" car by those standards, being only a category B - if you have the hippy flowers in its hair electric car, next year you will save 20 quid on your road tax!!)
As for future changes, they definitely happen - they've already changed the congestion charge for "low emissions vehicles"
http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/nissan/leaf/64775/london-congestion-charge-rules-tightened
I can see that shortly the hybrid won't be exempt, only the fully electric - the pattern is obvious.
While I'm typing this, don't forget that we also have running the current "war on diesel", which after incentivising all of us to drive more fuel economical, low CO2 oil burners, they now are telling us that that's bad.
Basically, things can and do and will continue to change - the b*****s will get you one way or another!
Fred
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Even if you are getting your electricity for free (free charging point at work?) I can't see why you'd pay the extra for the GTE over the GTD.
You can just imagine all the works electricity bills shooting up 10 fold :grin:
A guy at my wife's work has a Nissan Leaf and he was expecting just to plug it in while there!!
How does the electric / fuel part work I couldn't pick that up? If my commute is 12 miles to work and 12 back could I in theory not use any fuel at all?
In theory, if you drove like you had a 60ps UP! you might not use any fuel at all, but you'd probably add about £1.10 to your electricity bill on a daily basis, which is cheaper than the fuel you'd otherwise use, but will come as a shock on your electricity bill if you don't account for it until that big bill arrives.
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As soon as these electric cars are on the road in meaningful numbers, the free changing/free parking/free congestion charge will stop. Cheaper motoring for greenies (ignoring the extra expense these cars are to buy) is great when the 2% are doing it and the 98% are subsidising it, when that number becomes 10%/20%/30%, that lost revenue has to be made up somewhere.
The immediate future of cheap motoring without huge additional costs in car tech would be an LPG powered GTI, but how long do you reckon LPG would stay at 70p a litre? I'm sure it would be easy enough for them to do a "hybrid" GTI that combusted petrol in the usual way when you want performance, but seamlessly burns LPG for up to 100PS requirements when you're just tootling on or cruising at a set speed, and it would cost very little extra to do. A little space lost in the boot for the LPG tank. I'm sure VW do something similar already (albeit not for the performance models), for other markets.
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Or Hydrogen:
http://www.topgear.com/uk/car-news/toyota-fuel-cell-sedan-hydrogen-2014-6-27
Which actually brings me back to something I said here earlier - the Golf GTE is attractive because it looks like a CAR not a train wreck :D
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Only problem with hydrogen cars that need refilling is producing the hydrogen.....It isnt exactly environmentally friendly so sooner or later the TAX will increase substantially.
Ian
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Depends how you make the Hydrogen... solar furnaces and water works quite nicely with zero polution (unless you start including the polution created in building such a structure).
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Agreed...but not so well in the UK....and they produce quite small volumes which then need further "polishing" to increase the purity.
Ian
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This is true, the UK is a less suitable place for a solar furnace (well, Grimsby certainly is anyway!) however the fuel we put in our cars today isn't refined here either, so hydrogen really is a like for like swap as opposed to electric.
I guess one day fusion will finally get (and keep) going and then the options are somewhat boundless.
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) however the fuel we put in our cars today isn't refined here either
Why do you say that....? 2 of the biggest oil refineries in the UK are on your doorstep...??
On a side note....I see your in Grimsby...so Am I...what car do you have..?
Thanks
Ian
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) however the fuel we put in our cars today isn't refined here either
Why do you say that....? 2 of the biggest oil refineries in the UK are on your doorstep...??
On a side note....I see your in Grimsby...so Am I...what car do you have..?
Thanks
Ian
And I used to work at the huge Esso Fawley oil refinery down on the coast beyond Southampton, it is still going strong.
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Hmmm ok, that wasn't my understanding - or if that is the case, then its moving offshore (what isn't?)
Ian - I have a Limestone Grey Mk7 GTD :cool:
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Nice....we have a 3 door white GTI.....with a CAZ ---- plate on it....say hello if you see us around.
Ian
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As a company car driver I would be interested in this option in the future. My GTI is going to cost me over £200 per month in tax. This doesn't bother me greatly as I've had a company car for 15 years now and don't miss what's taken at source. Yes the amounts differ every 3 years but by +/- approx £50 so it's not a big problem.
But if I could choose a car with zero charges for emissions and vastly improved MPG whilst still achieving 7.6 secs for 0-62 and it looked good and drove well then why not?
People have discussed the batteries needing replacing eventually but on a 2 or 3 year contract hire that wouldn't be my problem. I could even see companies encouraging their employees to choose hybrid/electric cars to improve their carbon footprint.
And I agree that the rules will no doubt change. 15 years ago the tax was 35% for less than 2500 business miles then 25% up to 18000 and 15% above 18000. In other words a tax that encouraged us to pollute more to pay less. A good percentage of new cars are fleet and if there was a sudden drop off in car tax revenues the chancellor would move quickly to fix it.
So now would be the best time to go for it. Having said all that my GTI is being built next week so it will be 3 years before I need to make that decision.
Dave
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My company won't pay to have a phone or a laptop battery replaced when its charge capacity has decreased to unusable... let alone paying for a mega expensive car battery lol
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I am going to get the chance to drive one at the end of November in Greece while on the new Passat launch so will get some sort of review typed up.
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Do a Passat write up too please.
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The GTE has had a road outing in Switzerland.
Not a great review but at least you get to see it on the road https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd7ZxBMQ4KM
Strange though how the car being driven originally has leather seats then all of a sudden changes to tartan!
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I am looking forward to seeing this car more than any other car in 2015.
Its the way all cars are going I am afraid, but I am nervous about one of the early adopters. Would make more sense on a lease I suppose.
I do the school run every day - 10 miles, trips to Gym - 10 miles, football - 10 miles. All my driving is less than the 31 mile range so I could top while at home and my solar panels will take most of the expense out of the charge as well.
I don't think I would use any petrol at all which would put £40 a week back in my pocket. Over 3 years that is £6240 saved on fuel alone.
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Some sneak peeks of the new GTE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDA7kys9GaU&index=14&list=TLrHKiwhHAToY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAvVFVhE2Eg&list=TLrHKiwhHAToY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZvXLhkOdho&list=TLrHKiwhHAToY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Bel9xC53NQ&list=TLrHKiwhHAToY
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Definitely looking forward to test driving this...
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Definitely looking forward to test driving this...
I had the chance to test drive the GTE last Sunday whilst on the Pasdat Launch in Greece.
All I can say is look out hot hatch market!
The car handled brilliantly, had incredible instant throttle response on electric. Of course the usual classy GTI/GTD interior.
The absolute perfect car for the GTI customer who wants blue motion diesel economy but with GTD acceleration. Also no worries of the DPF..........Incredible car and is going to have huge lead times............
It was supposed to be open for ordering on the 16th of December but that is more than likely going to be put back till early next year. Mainly because of a huge amount of orders in Europe. Also because they can only build 150 of them a day in Wolfsburg........they won't even let employees at VW order one for there company cars.
Also had a play around on the Generation 2 Discover Pro navigation which has the really cool carnet system.
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Hi Lee,
Glad you enjoyed yourself in Greece driving the GTE. Weather must have been excellent. It always is.
Quick question: Regarding the DNS Pro and the DNS; will there be a Generation 2 for the DNS as well and will these Generation 2 versions be available on BW6 cars?
Thanks.
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Yes there will be a Gen 2 DNS as well, stupidly I forgot to ask when they would find there way into the Golf models. Much better screen quality and over twice as fast processing speed.
Rest assured as soon as I know you guys will too. Weather was lovely, low twenties definitely somewhere I want to go back on holiday.
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Yes there will be a Gen 2 DNS as well, stupidly I forgot to ask when they would find there way into the Golf models. Much better screen quality and over twice as fast processing speed.
Rest assured as soon as I know you guys will too. Weather was lovely, low twenties definitely somewhere I want to go back on holiday.
Thanks Lee. Please enquire about the Gen.2 Sat Navs. I do hope my BW6 R might come with one.
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I doubt it'll be in the r as it was said for now they were only going in electric/hybrid models. You'll have plenty of miffed gti/gtd drivers who ordered nav pro on the understanding it came with car net only to find the brochure was incorrect.
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I doubt it'll be in the r as it was said for now they were only going in electric/hybrid models. You'll have plenty of miffed gti/gtd drivers who ordered nav pro on the understanding it came with car net only to find the brochure was incorrect.
More than currently?
I've still no idea why the UK didn't get car net - its more than just network service availability, the unit doesn't even have the sim card slot - a definite "you are not having it"
Actually, I've just found this page:
http://volkswagen-carnet.com/int/en/start/car-models/golf_r/golfr_googleearth.html#tab/open/available
Maybe that's the problem, you need premium phone prep?
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Even with premium phone prep you still couldn't get car net services. Master tech made a few phone calls etc etc and came back with car net is only available on electric/hybrid models in UK. I hope this changes though.
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That's soon to change then because it will be coming in the new Passat. It was in the new passat we were playing around with carnet etc
If anyone wants the information we were given ref Gen 2 Infotainment systems just PM your email and I will fire some stuff over.
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That's soon to change then because it will be coming in the new Passat. It was in the new passat we were playing around with carnet etc
If anyone wants the information we were given ref Gen 2 Infotainment systems just PM your email and I will fire some stuff over.
PM sent with my email details.
Thanks.
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The equivalent Carnet on the Audi is really useful. So I would be looking forward to it on newer generation VW's
You can browse via Google maps on your PC then send the details to your car so its all ready to go when you get in.
Also you're not limited to postcode and road searches, you can go online in the car and search for businesses etc.
As well as giving you the days news, weather, cheapest petrol stations and cost of the fuel, as well as events in the area and available parking spaces in local car parks.
It also requires the equivalent premium mobile interface.
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That would be lovely to have in my car and quite honestly, not been beyond the realms of possibility for years.
Why are car manufacturers always so slow to adapt, particularly with the OEM nav/entertainment systems
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Just checked with VWCS and have been told that the Generation 2 DNS and DNS Pro Systems are only available for the Passat and might be available further on in 2015 for the Golf.
Got the info on the Generation 2 DNS and DNS Pro systems and they are much improved especially the DNS which comes with a 6.5" Screen, 4 times better graphics, 150% faster processing and many new features including Car-Net Mirror Link etc
Pity these two systems won't be available for the Golf in the near future.