Styling
Like every Mk8.5 Golf, the main change for the GTE on the outside is the light-up 'VW' nose emblem and illuminated strip either side of it. There's little doubt this is a divisive touch, but our problem isn't so much with that aspect of the GTE but how humdrum it can look overall. Sure, it has the big honeycomb front airdam with fancy daytime running light (DRL) signatures in it, and the blue pinstriping in the grille that is the PHEV's signature hue, but from the sides or the rear it's a very plain-looking thing - especially if the standard 17-inch 'Richmond' alloys are retained (see images) and it's then painted in a dull colour (our test car was Dolphin Grey, not a million miles away from the lighter shade of vehicle in the pictures). Honestly, take the 'GTE' badges off the boot and the doors of this 272hp machine, and people driving past in on the motorway would have no idea it was anything grander than a 1.5 TSI. Some might like that 'sleeper' appeal, but we think there's a fine aesthetic line to be trod between 'Q-car' and 'boring'. And, frankly, we think the GTE has drifted into the latter category, gaudy front-end lighting notwithstanding.
Interior
To tie it in with the GTI, the GTE has the same sporty Jacara cloth upholstery, only tinted with blue for the PHEV rather than red as it would be in the petrol-powered hot hatch. And like any Mk8.5 Golf, the car now comes with the much-improved 12.9-inch infotainment system. We sound a note of caution here, though - while we might say 'much-improved', there's no way it could be any more annoying than the Mk8 Golf's infotainment set-up, while the vaunted illumination of the sliders is the German company merely rectifying a gobsmacking oversight by its interior engineers in the first place. And you still have to jab at the bigger screen to do pretty much anything inside the Golf GTE's passenger compartment, because there are few items of physical switchgear to play with. Mind you, at least the horrible haptic buttons on the steering wheel have been replaced by physical items, so that's another big plus point for the 2025 model year GTE.
Practicality
Like any Golf, room in the cabin is plentiful without being generous - if you want that from your MQB-based C-segment performance machine, then you need the voluminous
Skoda Octavia vRS instead - so rear head- and legroom are fine but not outstanding. However, a typical PHEV issue rears its head: the placement of the bigger battery in the GTE is under the boot floor, so 108 litres of space are robbed from the cargo compartment to leave you with a supermini-like 273 litres with all seats in use. And there's no dedicated space to store the GTE's charging cables, either, so if you've got those on you then you've got even less room to play with in the boot.
Performance
All of the regular GTI, the R and this GTE have gained powered during the shift from Mk8 to Mk8.5, whereas the magnificent GTI Clubsport hasn't. So surely that has moved a car like the GTE closer in terms of desirability to the Clubsport, yes? Ah. No. What has happened here is a worthy set of updates, but hardly transformative - and the result is that for all its power and torque, the GTE nevertheless still feels like nothing more than a moderately muscular PHEV, rather than a true performance car.
Yet all of the drivetrain has been improved. The old 1.4-litre TSI engine has been replaced by the smoother 1.5 TSI evo, while the battery pack has gone up in size from 12.8kWh previously to a chunky 19.7kWh here. Accompanied by an 81kW (110hp) e-motor, the old GTE's 245hp figure has been eclipsed with a new 272hp peak, but maximum torque stays the same at 400Nm. On paper, this leads to an impressive spread of stats: 0-62mph in 6.6 seconds, a top speed the far side of 140mph, nearly 800mpg officially, just 8g/km of CO
2 and up to 81 miles of all-electric driving range. In reality, it adds up to rather humdrum performance.
We've said this a lot recently when it comes to this Volkswagen Group 1.5 TSI, but when it gets beyond 4,000rpm, it starts to sound coarse and strained. It's largely vibration-free and has plenty of low-down grunt considering its size, so it's not without merit at all, yet if the GTE is supposed to be a real hot hatch it should make a better noise at higher revs than this.
And that big battery takes a big toll on the Golf's kerb weight, because the GTE comes in at nearly 1.7 tonnes in this specification. It means that for all the 27hp power increase and strong torque output, this purported performance model doesn't feel that fast at all. It's certainly not slow, of course, but a plain-petrol GTI gives the impression it is far quicker than the GTE, despite having 7hp less.
At least the payoff is that the electric range does seem much improved, even if genuinely ever attaining 81 miles from a single charge of the Golf GTE will be nigh-on impossible (but that's a wider PHEV failing, not one specific to the part-electric VW). And when you fit a larger battery, the real-world economy does climb up to more than acceptable levels. Put it this way, if you took a Golf GTI for a 15-mile thrash on your favourite road, you'd be unlikely to get 67.3mpg from it like you could in the GTE. Of course, on the flipside of that, if you've bought a car on the basis of a claimed 796mpg, less than a tenth of that might be a tremendous disappointment to you.
Ride & Handling
As with the performance, the ride and handling of the GTE are simply not special enough to merit any connection to the GTI lineage. The most potent PHEV drives like any other regular eighth-generation Golf, pre- or post-facelift, in that it's very comfortable, it's highly refined (with the caveat that its 17s can generate more tyre noise in the cabin than you might have expected from a premium product like this), and it has clean and accurate enough steering plus a decent level of body control which means you can push it through a few bends with a little driving enthusiasm and its composure won't go all to pot.
But does it truly feel sporty, a dynamic cut above the 204hp eHybrid? It does not. We'd be very surprised if the GTE would ever put a smile on its driver's face, considering the buttoned-down nature of its chassis and the sense of heft that larger battery pack brings to proceedings. It's a much happier thing being driven well within itself rather than trying to nudge up to the kinematic limits, and it's that reserved nature which makes us think the GTE is rather pointless. You'd be just as well off with the 150hp 2.0 TDI in R-Line spec, it'll give you a driving experience every bit as rewarding as that of the 272hp PHEV.
Value
At £40,330, the Golf GTE's biggest problem is it's
more money than a 265hp GTI (£40,025), not less. It's also perilously close to the real driver's choice in the Golf Mk8.5 range, the GTI Clubsport (£42,780), and that 204hp eHybrid PHEV in attractive Style specification is usefully more than three grand cheaper at £37,165, and we don't think it drives appreciably worse than the GTE. So you've got to really, really want that GTI exterior look (front end, at least) and style in the cabin to make the GTE make sense.
Verdict
In general, the Mk8.5 Golf range is an improvement over the strangely lacklustre pre-facelift models and the GTE is no exception to that rule. It has improved eco-stats, both theoretically and in practice, and if all you want is a swift, secure and solid plug-in hybrid hatchback, there's not much wrong with this Volkswagen at all. But if you've seen that GTE badge and you're hoping for some driving sparkle, that's where the discrepancy between expectations and reality is largest. Honestly, there are better 'hot' versions of the Golf in the range... namely, the GTI and R models. So all of them, essentially.
