Car review: Volkswagen Passat GTE

I suppose if I was going to be mischievous, unkind even, I would describe the Volkswagen Passat GTE as a form of atonement for the company’s infamous emission scandal. Well, I am a journalist, after all.

More seriously, I should say that the Passat GTE, a formidable feat of technology, is a plug-in hybrid which, like similar vehicles from Toyota, Hyundai, Mitsubishi and others, is indeed doing its best to find a path to the future for our old friend the motor car.

I should explain at this point what on earth this car is. Well, it has the technically interesting feature of three methods of propulsion. First there’s a small petrol engine, a 1.4 litre turbo-charged and super-charged that’s teamed up with a six-speed automatic gearbox.

Then there’s a “hybrid” drive system that uses the energy wasted, for example while braking, to power up some lithium-ion batteries, which stores the energy for when it is needed, for example when accelerating hard or powering down a motorway.

Then there’s the “plug-in” bit, so you can, literally, plug the vehicle into the mains with a three-pin plug or, better, with a special socket and lead that will change much quicker than the four hours it takes from a normal domestic socket. VW claim that the Passat GTE can go for 31 miles in electric only mode (which I can verify) and you can choose which motor/engine you’d prefer to use – petrol or electric.

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Fully charged with electricity and with its 50-litre fuel tank full, your Passat can take you some 664 miles. (I can’t vouch for that, and am a bit sceptical about what VW says is a “theoretical” figure. Theoretically I could be Martian.) In any case, behind the wheel of your Passat you need have no “range anxiety”, the traditional worry for the electric car buyer.

For those who spend most of their driving time at high speed, it’s not really a good bet; what it is good for is “mixed” driving, with a bias towards stop-start urban and suburban journeys. At £36,750 you’ll need to do your homework to make sure it is an investment that will repay more than your curiosity.

It will certainly suit some very well. It is a Passat, which means a certain understated elegance and style, plus a friendly, classy, spacious cabin and extremely deep boot. It’s conventional, in other words, but not without some sparkle. Acceleration from rest to about 30mph beats most four-wheeled things on the road – thanks to that electric motor providing plentiful low-speed torque, and is pretty rapid across any speed range.

On the road you can feel the heft from the extra batteries and the electric motor, compared to less complicated versions of the model, but it doesn’t spoil the fun that much.

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So it is also part of the answer, this clever Passat, to moving on from the great diesel myth. For VW, along with Peugeot Citroen, Mercedes-Benz, BMW and some other car groups, loudly proclaimed that efficient “clean” diesels had indeed virtually abolished the old trade-offs between performance and economy (and the environment).

The message went out to a gullible media (me included) and the public that you can, to borrow a fashionable phrase, have your cake and eat it. “Performance” diesels offered speed and acceleration, but with breathtaking mpg figures and commensurately low emissions.

Not everybody went to the lengths VW went to stretch the truth, but they all proselytised for the diesel revolution, such as it was.

I think we now know that there was some exaggeration in the claims. Having said that, I see VW claim some 166 mpg (equivalent) for the technological marvel, but I couldn’t get much more than a third of that out of it.

Maybe that’s because I was driving “enthusiastically”. Perhaps you can make a car environmentally-friendly and intelligent, but not necessarily its driver. I, too, need to atone.