What's the news?

Well folks, this is where the face of performance motoring changes forever. We are only just used to having hot hatches with diesel engines, but Volkswagen is about to launch something completely different - a hot hatch with a hybrid powertrain. The Golf GTE, shown here officially for the first time, will go on sale later this year and comes with some staggering figures.

Exterior

From the outside the GTE differs from its more conventional stable mates with a set of futuristic running lights set into the lower front bumper while the GTI's red grille stripe has been replaced by a blue one.

Interior

Inside, there are still tartan GTI-style seats, but now with a Tron-esque blue-and-grey pattern to emphasise the car's electric nature. The blue motif is repeated on the flat-bottom steering wheel, the DSG shift lever and the door trims.

Other electric toys include a power flow meter to show you either how much fuel you're saving or how much fun you're having and a display on the satnav that finds the nearest electric charge-up points, and figures out whether or not you have the range left to reach them.

Mechanicals

The GTE uses the 1.4 TSI turbo petrol engine that we're already familiar with from the regular Golf. Here it's in 150hp trim, and it's allied to a 101hp electric motor. Combine both power sources and you get an averaged figure of 201hp and 350Nm of torque. That in turn equals a claimed 0-62mph run time of 7.6 seconds and a top speed of 135mph. So far, so GTI/GTD.

Here's the clever bit though. It's not just a hybrid, it's a plug-in hybrid and if you charge up the 8.8kWh lithium-ion battery stack (which takes a claimed three-and-a-half hours from a domestic wall socket - these charge times are definitely the 21st century equivalent of 0-60 times...) you can travel for just over 32 miles on just the battery. Combined with the petrol engine, that gives you a total overall range of 585 miles and a claimed combined fuel economy figure of, wait for it, 130mpg.

The whole battery/motor setup weighs just 120kg out of the GTE's total 1,524kg. That's still a hefty-ish weight, and explains why the GTE is slower overall than a diesel GTD, but it's hardly too porky for a plug-in hybrid. Kudos are due to the cleverly designed MQB chassis matrix that has been designed from the outset for electric applications. The electric motor itself is installed within the casing of the six-speed DSG paddle-shift gearbox.

Anything else?

Remember what I said about charging times being the new 0-60? Well, that 3.5-hour charge up is from a socket in your house. If you can find something a bit beefier, such as a kerbside charging point, you can have a new tankful of electrons in just about an hour.

Neil Briscoe - 24 Feb 2014