Golf GTE hybrid

moohound

Test drove the GTE and it was impressive, the silence when in electric mode is a bit weird though. I have decided to go for one.

A tesla will not fit on my drive

gzoom

moohound wrote: »

Test drove the GTE and it was impressive, the silence when in electric mode is a bit weird though.

Congrats, let us know how you get on.....One thing is for sure, your get to the silence very quickly. These days when I get into a normal petrol car I'm constantly worried something is about to fall off at any moment due to the constant racket of the petrol engine

AdrianC

Real 70mpg from a Lexus hybrid? God knows how - I managed a real 45ish over 1800km in an Auris hybrid recently, in a country with much more relaxed driving, lower speeds and much lower traffic than the UK.

gzoom

AdrianC wrote: »

Real 70mpg from a Lexus hybrid? God knows how - I managed a real 45ish over 1800km in an Auris hybrid recently, in a country with much more relaxed driving, lower speeds and much lower traffic than the UK.

You clearly weren't driving it right ...or it could just be me

The Lexus is my wife's main car, she gets about 50mpg, but every time I've driven it on a long-run 60-65mpg is easly to achieve whilst keeping pace with traffic. 70mpg+ is possible but you end up behind lorries on the M-way. The hybrid set-up on the IS300H is better than the rest of the Lexus/Toyota range though - It's got the biggest battery (part from the Prius PHEV) paried up to a decent 2.5 4 cylinder unit, the car it self is also not that heavy compared to a NX/RX.

I can also get a realistic 100 mile from the Leaf which equates to 5 miles per kWh - given the Leaf a usable 20 kWh from its 24 kWh battery, mst motoring journalist struggle to achieve 70-80 miles. I cannot wait to get my hands on a Tesla Model S, most journalist get about 200 miles+ to a charge, but with 81 kWh of usable battery, assuming less efficeny than the Leaf, so 4 miles per kWh I reckon I can get 300+ miles from a full charge....Which is getting close to what my old BMW 335i could do a tank fo petrol at £80+ per pop.

Must be my pensioner style of driving

AdrianC

gzoom wrote: »

You clearly weren't driving it right ...or it could just be me

Trust me, it wasn't a car that encouraged any kind of enthusiasm at all, least of all enthusiastic driving... It seemed to have had a vast amount of engineering talent, time and money poured into making every single control as perfectly weighted as possible whilst feeling like it wasn't actually connected to anything in any way.

psilvester

moohound wrote: »

It will be a subsidised lease car and is 20% less expensive than the diesel or petrol version, I do short journeys mostly. I do need reliability though, and I don't know anyone who has a hybrid. It will be a 2 year lease if I choose to go for it.

The lease includes tyres, servicing, breakdown and insurance.


To be honest I was very surprised at how cheap it would be for me, as the car retails at nearly £34000 and it was less a month than a C3 Picasso, a Skoda Fabia or a Ford Bmax, which all cost half that to buy.

NHS Fleet Solutions by any chance?

I managed to sign up to the initial offering of a GTE delivered in July. Downsizing from a C4GP so was considering a Fabia, but when this offer went live I jumped on it without even taking a test drive.

With it being a new car with not many examples on the road I guess it is hard to talk about reliability but look on the Speak EV site as there is a GTE forum with some users now taking delivery.

moohound

psilvester wrote: »

NHS Fleet Solutions by any chance?

I managed to sign up to the initial offering of a GTE delivered in July. Downsizing from a C4GP so was considering a Fabia, but when this offer went live I jumped on it without even taking a test drive.

With it being a new car with not many examples on the road I guess it is hard to talk about reliability but look on the Speak EV site as there is a GTE forum with some users now taking delivery.

Yes it is NHS Fleet solutions, I was looking at a Fabia estate or a Citroen Cactus until i saw the Golf on offer.

psilvester

moohound wrote: »

Yes it is NHS Fleet solutions, I was looking at a Fabia estate or a Citroen Cactus until i saw the Golf on offer.

To be honest the thing that swung it for me more was the fact it was only a 2 year lease rather than the normal 3, as the 3 years felt like a very long commitment. Plus I only drive 5 miles per day to get to work and back and there is a public charger just around the corner (until I can convince work to get one installed!). So financially it did stand up as being cheaper to run than a Fabia.

What I would suggest, if you have not already, is take a look at the GTE at your nearest VW dealer. The other two cars you are looking at have acres more boot space in comparison to the GTE (it's boot is more the size of a Ford Fiesta). As I said earlier we are downsizing from a 7 seater due to kids getting older and not needing the boot space for pushchairs etc, so although the boot has less space we think it would work out for us (2 adults, 2 kids).

moohound

I had a look and a drive of the GTE and there is enough boot space for me, I load our caravan with my car, as it 'lives' in storage 12 miles away, but I usually do this on my own so I can fold the seats down and fit all our stuff in.

I can't have anything much bigger than my current ford fusion as it won't fit on the drive, we don't need anything with bigger boot space as OH drives an XC70 which we tow the caravan with.

The GTE seemed to do everything I need a car to do, my commute is 3.2 miles but I do on call once or twice a week and I need to get in to work pretty quick - it is for operating theatres - we only do elective surgery so we don't have night staff but patients do sometimes have to come back out of hours so I need a reliable vehicle.

I was swayed towards the GTE because of the lower running costs and the 2 year lease.

thenudeone

This might help: http://www.nextgreencar.com/