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Interior
What is it like on the inside?
Regular readers of these pages will know that we’ve not been the biggest fans of any MkVIII Golf interior yet. The almost button-free Innovision cockpit features two 10-inch screens and the central infotainment display with its touch-sensitive slider underneath remains tricky to navigate. It’s baffling how a company as accomplished and experienced as Volkswagen can even send a system like this out of the factory – at best it’s a frustrating experience, at worst a dangerous distraction from the road.
What’s the interior spec like?
Elsewhere in the GTE there’s blue tartan cloth and the same sports steering wheel as you’ll find in the GTI. Unfortunately, that also means there are the same useless haptic feedback buttons on the wheel. They really are poor – particularly frustrating when they’re needed to operate the standard (and impressive) cruise control.
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Elsewhere, you get Apple CarPlay and Android Auto compatibility, heated front seats, GTE interior flourishes, LED ambient lighting and three-zone climate control as standard too. Generally speaking the Golf is a pleasant place to be, until you need to adjust something using the infotainment screen.
What about practicality?
The virtue of a spicy Golf is that in theory you combine the thrills with a solid everyday car that offers the practicality to carry three or four passengers and a decent slug of bootspace. Of course, smaller plug-in hybrid cars will often have to sacrifice some of that luggage space in the name of ramming in a few batteries and it’s no different for the GTE. You get 273 litres of room in the boot, compared with the GTI’s 374 litres. Ouch.
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