Volkswagen Passat Estate review

In a landscape dominated by niche SUVs clashing in the great game of crossover thrones, the Passat wagon is quietly wonderful. One of these – a new plug-in hybrid GTE model – has just become the 30 millionth Passat ever built.

It’s newly improved to capitalise on that diesel hullabaloo someone caused a few years ago. The Passat GTE will now go 34 miles on e-power alone, which is apparently enough to complete most Passat owners daily commutes without ever waking the 1.4-litre, 154bhp petrol engine. Really? Don’t most fleet users clock up much bigger mileages? Either way, a top speed of 80mph in E-mode alone (which the car always defaults to when starting, making quiet, slick getaways a doddle) is impressive.

Economy figures might be clever too, but thanks ironically to the bottleneck in testing cars on the latest ‘WLTP’ eco lie detector, VW has no official data on fuel economy or emissions. Reckon on real world forty-something to the gallon and the lowest tax bill of any Passat thanks to circa-50g/km of CO2.

There’s a five per cent price cut too, apparently, for the Passat GTE. But VW doesn’t know the price yet. Because that depends on depreciation, which depends on efficiency… see what a domino effect this stuff has?