Volkswagen Passat GTE review, test drive

In the wake of the diesel ban in the Delhi NCR, VW plans to introduce this plug-in hybrid version of the Passat in India. But does it make sense?

Published on May 09, 2016 12:18:00 PM

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Volkswagen Passat GTE review, test drive

What’s it like to drive?

Weirdly, I got my first sense of the Passat GTE’s powertrain from the driver’s seat of the diesel car, as I followed the hybrid in a convoy. Every time a traffic light turned green, the GTE in front of me just shot off the line, and even when I flattened the throttle in the 2.0 TDI, it took a few long seconds to catch up. That’s the power of instantly available electric torque, and the VW engineers even had to warn us to be careful with the GTE’s throttle. The car starts, by default, in dead-silent full-electric mode and this makes it even more surprising when you’re thrust forward briskly at the merest tap of the right pedal.

Once you’ve learned to modulate it, though, it starts to feel really natural. E-mode lets you drive at speeds up to 130kph and has a potential range of 50km, which, as I mentioned earlier, could be enough for many to do their daily commute comfortably between charges. The next mode is hybrid, where the system decides on its own when to shift between the electric motor and the petrol engine, based on your throttle inputs and speed, just as with a parallel hybrid like the Toyota Camry.

The engine in question is a familiar one – the 1.4-litre TSI turbo-petrol from the Octavia and Jetta, with a little more power, at 156hp. You rarely get to experience it entirely on its own, as there’s no ‘Petrol only’ mode, but combined with constant electric backup, it feels more than powerful enough. The next mode is called ‘Charging’, where the petrol engine is working primarily to charge the batteries. This means it tries to stick to higher revs with a view to generate maximum electricity, and this will consume a lot of fuel. The final mode is ‘GTE’ and this is the one VW says is for maximum fun. Here, both forms of propulsion are giving you their most for a total of 218hp. It certainly feels a closer relation to a GTI than a TDI in this mode, and the sheer thrust of the thing is surprisingly addictive.

Additionally, where you would normally access Sport or ‘S’ mode for the powertrain by tapping the gear lever to the left of ‘D’, doing so in the GTE activates ‘B’ mode. Doing this maximises the regenerative braking, to the point that, in normal use, you don’t have to touch the brakes at all. Just lifting off the accelerator results in serious deceleration, and as a precaution to other motorists, the brake lights even come on when you do this.