Feel VW have missed a trick on not going straight into 48 v with the MK 8 as that is revolution and sure they could have told a good story to the performance benefits in terms of the GTI and R.
I do too - there has to be a reason why this didn't happen though and it has to be something quite significant because every OEM needs to be showing their green credentials.
However, it was only ever going to be a 48v mild hybrid, not a "true" hybrid providing electric boost.
The proposed system is the same as the Passat *did* get - 48v electric start (with engine off coasting), electric turbo, all electric systems run from the 48v battery pack and charging from brake recovery.
All of that is about scraping arguably very small amounts of CO2 output back. The theory being that a million Golf's on the road all produce a few Kg less CO2 per year adding up to a fair old amount across the world.
The Mk8 does bring in theory less weight (which would be offset by the 48v system ironically), a larger boot and what we all seem to currently believe is an uglier shape :-/