Volkswagen Golf eHybrid review

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After a significant technical overhaul, VW’s baby PHEV looks very compelling indeed

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The ground-up technical overhaul of the Volkswagen Golf eHybrid is up there with the industry's most comprehensive efforts.

Out of all the variants of the Volkswagen Golf we've driven to date, none of them has been more widely overhauled. Powered by a second-generation version of the Volkswagen Group’s four-cylinder plug-in hybrid powertrain, this Golf has taken significant technical and functional strides. With adoption of electric cars still not widespread, it sits in a unique position, being the first plug-in hybrid hatchback that we have tested in the 5% benefit-in-kind company car tax bracket.

The Golf eHybrid is one of the longest-range PHEVs currently on sale.
Jonathan Bryce
Social Media Executive

Of course, it isn't the only hatchback that can lay claim to such a trait, the same powertrain having been slotted into the Cupra Leon, one of this car's close relations - and biggest rivals. It's also fighting against other, more mechanically distant cars in the class such as the Toyota Corolla, Vauxhall Astra, Toyota CH-R, Audi A3 PHEV and, on the slightly more expensive side, the BMW 330e.

Even against all of that lot, though, it promises to be an effective fleet sales lever, as VW seeks to continue the Golf's appeal and return it to the top of Europe’s sales ranks.

The Volkswagen Golf e-Hybrid range at a glance

There's only one engine to choose from here: a 1.5-litre four-pot mated to an electric motor for 201bhp and 258lb ft. You can also have the GTE, for which we have a separate review, which ups power to 268bhp.

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All eHybrid Golfs come with 17in alloys, privacy glass, a rear-view camera, a 12.9in infotainment system with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, a digital instrument display and ambient lighting.

Unlike the GTE, the eHybrid is tuned for outright efficiency, comfort and electric range, says VW. But, being a higher-end Golf derivative, it still gets independent rear suspension.

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DESIGN & STYLING

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Volkswagen Golf eHybrid 2024 review badge 14

This car’s hybrid system has already been rolled out on the likes of the Volkswagen Tiguan and Passat, but its potential is only now being fully realised on something as small as a regular hatchback.

The packaging challenges inherent to PHEVs in this class have meant only few have so far managed more than 40 miles of electric range, thereby avoiding BIK tax of 12%. But the Golf eHybrid’s official electric range of 88 miles allows it to be taxed at 5% (quite close, even, to the 2% levied on EVs).

The Golf eHybrid and GTE are the first series-production VWs in Europe with an illuminated VW badge on the grille (although the Touareg R-Line had one illuminated in red on the bootlid).
Matt Saunders
Road test editor

That’s thanks to several technical advancements. The car’s nickel-manganese-cobalt drive battery now offers 19.7kWh of usable capacity (almost double that of the pre-facelifted car), and is more energy-dense than before, even accounting for the liquid cooling that VW has added to it (which helps facilitate better efficiency, as well as DC rapid charging at up to 50kW).

The engine is Volkswagen's new 1.5-litre ‘TSI Evo2’ unit that combines a variable-geometry turbocharger with a Miller-cycle combustion strategy. It drives the front wheels in parallel with a 107bhp electric motor via a new six-speed dual-clutch automatic gearbox with ratios chosen for optimal petrol-electric efficiency. The combined output is 201bhp and 258lb ft, the same torque but 67bhp less than what the GTE’s closely related powertrain produces. 

INTERIOR

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Volkswagen Golf eHybrid 2024 review dash 27

It’s a shame, with reference to the car’s comfort-first positioning, that VW didn’t think to make its excellent 14-way Ergoactive seats standard-fit. As it is, however, the Golf eHybrid offers a good, comfortable and fairly well-supported driving position; plenty of room for taller occupants up front; and just enough second-row space for average-height adults, without making the car itself feel overgrown for the compact class.

In the boot, any underfloor storage, or split-level boot configurability, is lost to the packaging of the power electronics and relocated fuel tank, but 273 litres is left. That would be more typical of a supermini than something from the class above, but it does at least offer a flat floor with the back seats folded down.

The Mk8.5 Golf's interior fit and finish is about right for the class, but there are some cheaper touches to make you think the previous, Mk7.5 car was better-built.
Jonathan Bryce
Social Media Executive

Legroom in the back seats is good, and there's enough headroom for those under 6ft; those over it may find their head rubbing against the headliner. There are a couple of customary air vents, and some USB-C ports back there for phone charging.

The car’s primary controls are intuitively positioned; the instrumentation is all-digital but clear and usefully configurable; and the new multimedia system is better laid out and easier to use than in the pre-facelifted car, albeit still missing some more simple, physical controls.  

The 12.9in infotainment system is relatively easy to get used to, especially after spending a couple of weeks with the car. It's smooth to operate, with sharp graphics and configurable menus (such as the ribbon of icons that runs along the top of it), and in our time with it we experienced no glitches or latency worth talking about. It helps, too, that the smartphone mirroring software is well integrated, making it easy to switch between Apple CarPlay, for example, and the native system.

As in other Golfs we have tested, material cabin quality is good rather than great. There are some sturdy-feeling soft-touch materials atop the dashboard and front door cards, but the infotainment screen and centre console are all given to a fair amount of flex - and you don't have to be pushing them very hard to be able to tell.

ENGINES & PERFORMANCE

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Volkswagen Golf eHybrid 2024 review rear corner 72

This Golf is a car of assured performance whose availability doesn’t seem to depend on a fully charged drive battery.

While the conditions may have been a factor in robbing the front axle of a little traction at nearly full charge (when it suffered flurries of momentary wheelspin), when we tested it we actually recorded a slightly faster standing-start acceleration time when the battery was indicated as almost flat. This can be considered proof that the car suffers with little or no meaningful ‘charge drain’ performance deterioration.

With over 200bhp, this eHybrid is about as powerful and fast as the last-gen GTE. Which means it will be good enough for anyone.
Jonathan Bryce
Social Media Executive

With a GTE variant sold alongside it, of course, you might imagine eHybrid buyers to be less interested in outright performance than drivability, refinement, efficiency and EV range. In these respects, the car hit fairly consistent high standards, its odd lapse here or there notable mostly in contrast with the prevailing maturity, smoothness and good manners that characterises it more widely.

It almost always gets under way under hushed electric power. Selecting Sport driving mode doesn’t induce the combustion engine to run constantly, and so when you do use full power from rest, there is an instant when the car seems to have it all to do to get its pistons reciprocating, and then deliver combustion torque to the front axle. 

And yet there’s no particular sense of it being flustered by the challenge. In electric-only running, meanwhile, there’s plenty of performance at speeds of up to 50mph. VW’s tachometer is useful in making it clear when a deeper dig of power will be likely to rouse the engine, which usually chimes in very quietly and smoothly, and only picks up any notable edge of coarseness at high revs and under load. Faster A-road and motorway running more often requires some combustive back-up – but even here extended zero-emissions cruising periods are easy to achieve.

RIDE & HANDLING

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Volkswagen Golf eHybrid 2024 review rear corner 74

There is an unmistakable sense of middle-of-the-market dynamic versatility to the very best examples of the VW Golf – and, despite its weight and the complexity of its powertrain, that’s the sort of car that the eHybrid feels like.

It’s not as light on its feet or as naturally nimble as some smaller hatchback rivals, but a comfort-focused rather than sporting dynamic brief does appear to make room for it to impress on the road in any case. 

There's an assured, solid-feeling maturity about the Golf that few other cars can replicate, from its ride across any road surface to its steering feel. The eHybrid is no different.
Jonathan Bryce
Social Media Executive

The eHybrid combines a supple, fluent ride with decent outright grip and body control. It steers precisely, predictably and with tidy alacrity, without gesturing towards an incisive handling zeal that many owners would leave untapped anyway. This car has little greater ambition than simply to drive like a Golf – with maturity, measure and a little sophistication. Only on the worst-paved roads does it become slightly unsettled, with a harsher edge to the ride overall.

The optional DCC adaptive dampers afford the car plenty of adjustability in its ride gait, allowing a supple, flowing B-road stride only occasionally troubled by poor wheel control over the sharpest of edges. When turned up to firm, those dampers also kept close tabs on body roll on the limit, and helped to maintain good stability, steering authority and handling balance.

Assisted Driving notes

From mid-tier trim levels and above, the Golf eHybrid has plenty of assisted driving technology as standard. There is the mandatory speed limit detection and reminder system, too, which defaults to ‘on’ at every ignition cycle (because that’s what the law dictates). Like the lane keeping system, however, this is made easy to deactivate via an ADAS shortcut icon permanently displayed on the upper margin of the infotainment screen.

The driver monitoring system isn’t bothersome, and the automatic emergency braking isn’t prone to intrusive false activation.

Using the Travel Assist mode of the cruise control activates VW’s various semi-autonomous cruise functions. They work better here than on other VW models we have tested because the system isn’t so prescriptive about how and where you hold the steering wheel in order to keep it engaged, and so doesn’t threaten to drop out with unnecessary beeps and stabs of the brakes.

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MPG & RUNNING COSTS

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VW Golf eHybrid front cornering

A starting price just above £36,000 makes this a moderately expensive Golf – some 20% pricier than a less-powerful mild-hybrid petrol or TDI diesel – but it doesn’t appear to exist to exploit its fleet-friendly tax status for profit, or to have been made prohibitively expensive for retail buyers.

That’s about what you would expect to pay for a European electric hatchback, of course; but since the eHybrid offers much of the running appeal and cost advantages of an EV anyway, as well as combustion-engined back-up, the car justifies its price tag easily enough – not least given that 88-mile electric range.

Like in some other PHEVs, electric range doesn't drop off a cliff on the motorway. Instead, the Golf takes it in its stride.
Jonathan Bryce
Social Media Executive

We averaged 66 miles in mixed use during the course of our test, which is probably about double the real-world PHEV hatchback class average. It’s enough to meaningfully change how you choose to fuel the car in day-to-day use, and how often you need to buy petrol.

Over a week’s testing of a little over 500 miles, including plenty of residential charging and short-range trips but also several hours of intensive track testing, we only managed to half-empty the car’s petrol tank. In electric-only running, the 3.4mpkWh average in mixed-road testing is in itself competitive with actual EVs of similar size. If you're economy-minded, you'll readily get 4.0mpkWh from the battery - even on a motorway.

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VERDICT

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Volkswagen Golf eHybrid front static 2

Volkswagen has put a new complexion on the case for the plug-in hybrid hatchback as a smart alternative to both traditional ICE and EV rivals.

With nearly 70 miles of dependable real-world EV range, DC rapid charging included, and assertive, efficient and pleasant ‘range-extended’ running thereafter, the Golf eHybrid really does represent an appealing ownership proposition.

From a versatility standpoint, this is the most complete Golf you can buy.
Jonathan Bryce
Social Media Executive

This car enters a part of the market where PHEV options have sometimes struggled to produce really transformative electric range for an affordable price thus far. But this is a plug-in hybrid that genuinely is like an EV to drive a great deal of the time, and that isn't priced to take advantage of that. Our specification of choice would be the mid-range Style, because it gets nearly the same amount of equipment as the range-topping GTE, but for only an extra £1000 outlay over the entry-level car.

Whichever version you go for, however, the Golf eHybrid could genuinely deliver lasting change to your motoring habits as one of the most versatile cars on sale today – and all from a position of calm reassurance.

Jonathan Bryce

Jonathan Bryce
Title: Social Media Executive

Jonathan is Autocar's social media executive. He has held this position since December 2024, having previously studied at the University of Glasgow before moving to London to become an editorial apprentice and pursue a career in motoring journalism. 

His role at work involves running all of Autocar's social media channels, including X, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, YouTube Shorts, LinkedIn and WhatsApp. 

Matt Saunders

Matt Saunders Autocar
Title: Road test editor

As Autocar’s chief car tester and reviewer, it’s Matt’s job to ensure the quality, objectivity, relevance and rigour of the entirety of Autocar’s reviews output, as well contributing a great many detailed road tests, group tests and drive reviews himself.

Matt has been an Autocar staffer since the autumn of 2003, and has been lucky enough to work alongside some of the magazine’s best-known writers and contributors over that time. He served as staff writer, features editor, assistant editor and digital editor, before joining the road test desk in 2011.

Since then he’s driven, measured, lap-timed, figured, and reported on cars as varied as the Bugatti Veyron, Rolls-Royce Phantom, Tesla Roadster, Ariel Hipercar, Tata Nano, McLaren Senna, Renault Twizy and Toyota Mirai. Among his wider personal highlights of the job have been covering Sebastien Loeb’s record-breaking run at Pikes Peak in 2013; doing 190mph on derestricted German autobahn in a Brabus Rocket; and driving McLaren’s legendary ‘XP5’ F1 prototype. His own car is a trusty Mazda CX-5.