Touchscreens and hybrid tech dominate in latest VW Golf
NEW car launches don’t get much bigger than a fresh generation of VW Golf – and the eighth incarnation of the iconic family hatchback was unveiled in its home town of Wolfsburg, a few weeks after the Frankfurt Motor Show. The look of a new Golf is traditionally an evolution of what’s gone before, and this one is no exception; chief designer Klaus Bischoff and his team haven’t messed around too much with the winning formula. There are subtle changes, though, particularly around the front end, where the team have made greater use of LED tech to give the car much slimmer headlights. The profile remains pure Golf, however – not least because the car is on basically the same platform as before: the VW Group’s ubiquitous MQB. That doesn’t mean that the Golf hasn’t received a major tech upgrade. The car gets a 48-volt mild-hybrid system on its 1.5-litre turbo petrol motors, and the 109bhp version of the 1.0-litre three-cylinder petrol. The system harnesses energy when braking and then delivers up to 16bhp and 25Nm to boost performance and fuel-efficiency.
There will also be a couple of diesel engines in the range, and the GTE plug-in hybrid produces 242bhp, which makes it as potent as the outgoing Golf GTI Performance Pack. A successor to that hot hatch is on the horizon too, of course, and it should pack well over 270bhp. But there won’t be a successor to the pure-electric e-Golf; VW believes the recently launched ID.3 should satisfy customer demand for an EV family hatch.
Perhaps the most significant changes to the Golf come in the cabin. VW is taking a major gamble on functionality by removing many physical switches, replacing them with touchsensitive surfaces. There’s even a ‘swipe strip’ in the middle of the dashboard that combines controls for the ventilation and, bizarrely, the infotainment volume and more.
The goal has been to declutter the car’s fascia and open up the Golf’s cabin – and there’s no doubt that this has been achieved. The adoption of the 10.25-inch ‘Virtual Cockpit’ digital instrument panel across the range is a first for the class, too. But it’ll be fascinating to see how traditionalists – and older customers – react to this level of tech and the new interfaces. In many ways, this may be the most radical Golf in many a year.