Styling
There's no way you could accuse the Passat Estate of being ugly, although the 17-inch 'Napoli' turbine-like alloys on the Elegance model won't be to all tastes - there's something vaguely '1970s department store décor' about them, in a way we can't exactly pinpoint. But we love an estate and we think the Passat is certainly handsome, yet we can't quite bring ourselves to love it. The previous
VW wagon was a more angular, crisp-edged thing and there's a good reason for the comparatively swoopier shape of this ninth-gen car - aerodynamics. It cuts through the air with a measly 0.25Cd interference in the atmosphere, which is to the benefit of fuel economy and electrical range. That's all very noble, but from an aesthetic point of view, maybe it's the way the strong, straight shoulder line of the Volkswagen is at odds with the curved bonnet and front end that makes the styling difficult to adore, we don't know; all we can say is the Passat is fine, yet we far prefer the look of the Skoda Superb Mk4.
Interior
We could say the same thing about the interior that we did when summing up the Passat's body above, but that would be doing a disservice to the cabin of the VW. This is one of the company's better efforts of recent years, because the Passat - along with the
present Tiguan SUV - sits on the MQB evo platform, which in turn means it gets the latest MIB4 infotainment system. And that's miles better than the much-maligned MIB3 set-up found in the early ID. electric vehicles, although it's still heavily digitised within the Passat and that will, again, not please everyone.
The climate controls are on the central screen (either 12.9 or a colossal 15 inches across the diagonal, depending on trim level), albeit at least the temperature controls are backlit here, while the instrument cluster is a 10.25-inch Digital Cockpit Pro effort. The gear selector has also been shifted from the central tunnel to the steering column, which is another potentially contentious decision. However, there are proper, physical buttons on the Passat's steering wheel and everything works pretty nicely, while the fillets of trim around the dashboard and door cards have patterns in them which light up tastefully at night for a classy ambience. It's undoubtedly a success in the VW, then... but, ultimately, the Superb's cabin is a little easier on the eye.
Practicality
No qualms about this part of the Passat's make-up. Rear legroom is bounteous, headroom is good and, believe it or not, the VW PHEV estate has a bigger boot (minimum space) than the Skoda PHEV estate. With all five seats in use, the Passat wagon boasts 530 litres, 20 more than the part-electric Superb, but weirdly with the second row folded away the Skoda edges it by 10 litres (1,770 versus the VW's 1,760 litres). Anyway, however you look at it, the Passat has a whopping cargo bay, a spacious interior with great visibility out in all directions for the driver, and loads of useful interior stowage solutions and cubbies. It is therefore ideally suited to life as a family chariot, one of its primary functions in life.
Performance
As with the Skoda Superb PHEV, this Passat eHybrid employs a 1.5-litre turbocharged four-cylinder petrol engine, along with an 85kW (116hp) electric motor and a battery with a net 19.7kWh capacity. There's a more powerful iteration of this drivetrain with system maximums of 272hp and 400Nm, but this version we're testing here has the 204hp/350Nm combination.
And it's a perfectly satisfactory installation in the Passat Estate, albeit one that's about at the minimum cusp (if there is such a thing) of what you need to shift 1.85 tonnes of wagon about the place. Performance is strong enough that you can keep up with traffic flow without the need to mercilessly thrash the 1.5 into the upper reaches of its rev range, which is good news as it becomes a trifle noisy and strained beyond 4,000rpm. Thankfully, all the electrically assisted torque in the VW does a great job of making the car more than capable of surfing around on its 350Nm so you can keep the four-pot motor quiet for most of the time.
Otherwise, as you'd expect of a modern-era Volkswagen Group powertrain, it's incredibly civilised and smooth. Even the gearbox, only a six-speed DSG in these PHEVs rather than the seven-speed unit you'd find in eTSI mild-hybrid Passats, doesn't feel hopelessly outmoded, providing slick and unobtrusive shifts at all times. It's basically a good, sophisticated alternative to a turbodiesel, which is the objective with most mainstream, non-performance-oriented PHEVs these days.
But is it as efficient as a good turbodiesel? Well, it would seem to be. That large battery gives the Passat eHybrid an excellent quoted all-electric range of 80 miles in Elegance spec, and even if you won't ever achieve that in reality - nor the flight-of-fancy 731mpg WLTP economy figure - at least this Volkswagen won't break the bank to run. Our initial 36-mile foray in it saw an impressive 72.4mpg at a 30mph average (slower roads, no motorways), thanks to there being some charge in the battery pack. A long 160-mile-plus motorway trek then depleted what was left of the electrical power, but it still achieved 48.8mpg in such circumstances. And over the course of a challenging 715-mile week (more than 17 hours at the Passat's wheel), the car managed 47.9mpg overall; we have to say, as we were pretty lax about charging it from the mains in that time, that's a very decent return for a near-two-tonne petrol estate car with more than 200 horsepower, even if it's only 6.5 per cent of the official fuel-consumption figure.
Ride & Handling
Take one look at a Volkswagen Passat Estate, or refer to your inner preconceptions about how you think this car drives, and you can probably predict what we are going to say here. So here goes: the Passat eHybrid is a delight to travel in, if all you ever do in it is cover mega-distances on a regular basis. The soft, supple and quiet suspension provides wonderful isolation from abject road surfaces, while that slippery exterior form ensures the VW cuts through the air with the minimum of fuss, even at 70mph. This is a car entirely geared up to operate at its shining best at motorway/Autobahn speeds, and it aces the brief because it thoroughly excels at such a task.
What it isn't, though, is in any way remotely exciting to drive. But that doesn't mean it has terrible dynamics. The steering, for instance, is actually nicely geared and weighted, and provides clean, accurate control of the Passat in corners. Better still, it might have comfortable suspension, but it doesn't have loose and slovenly body control to go with it, so if you want to hustle it at a fair old clip along a twisting road then its manners won't completely fall apart in the process. However, its suspension doesn't have much in the way of answers if you start really pushing it, while ultimately the Passat's final recourse is to safety-prioritised but fun-sapping understeer.
Still, no one drives plug-in hybrid estates right on the ragged edge, so dynamically the Passat is bang on the money because it totally takes the sting out of the drudgery of everyday driving with its impeccable rolling refinement and comfort levels. In summary, it drives precisely like the Superb Estate PHEV, and we loved that car for precisely the same behaviours so we're happy to see the Passat continues in the same vein.
Value
As a mark of how car prices - just list, not monthly PCP figures, which of course is how most people 'buy' a vehicle these days - have gone doolally, the poor old Volkswagen Passat seems to be a focal point for people's ire about the sheer expense of modern motors. We often Tweet (X?) our test cars and most of them have what we think are wild list values. So this PHEV Passat Estate, in high-ranking (but not top-grade) Elegance spec, didn't seem extraordinarily overpriced at £47,380, or £49,660 with a couple of options fitted (the 12+1-speaker Harman Kardon sound system with 16-channel digital amp, subwoofer and 700-watt output for £1,455, and Mariposit Green metallic paint for £825). Especially when the last Superb Estate PHEV we drove (admittedly a flagship in L&K trim) was £49,200.
But this car drew a lot of flak on social media for being wildly overpriced. Sure, the concept of a '50-Grand Passat' is hard to take, especially when it's not one of the model's bizarre performance highs from the past like the
majestic W8 or
quietly impressive R36. But number one, nobody is going to actually
pay £49,660 for the Passat, either because they haggle it down in the first place, they simply opt for a lower specification to suit their wallet (the range starts from less than £40,000), or because they will PCP it and only want to know the monthly costs, not the list price. And number two, we reiterate it's not outrageously priced in the context of modern cars - as we've already said, the Superb ain't that much cheaper (starts from £36,995, can be specified to £50,000 if you're not careful), and nor is the only other reasonable alternative on sale, the Peugeot 508 SW. That starts from £48,010 at the time of writing, mainly because it is reaching the end of its life and so is only sold in the highest GT specification with the 225hp PHEV powertrain these days. But the
last one of those we drove was £55,855 with options. Which rather makes the Passat look like a bargain.
Whatever; for the amount of standard kit you get (plenty, on the Elegance) and the classy car you'd end up with, the Passat doesn't seem offensively expensive. And you could certainly cut it another way by saying it'll be cheaper than a comparable plug-in hybrid of either the
BMW 3 Series Touring or
Audi A5 Avant, while feeling every inch as composed and refined as both its compatriots. Therefore, truly assessing its 'value for money' quotient is kind of hard with this Volkswagen Passat eHybrid.
Verdict
We're very glad the Volkswagen Passat continues, especially as the Estate. It's the kind of car that manufacturers find all too easy to kill off these days, in favour of a slew of anonymous SUVs, and we'd always choose a wagon over a faux-4x4. That said, the Passat isn't quite as good to look at as its two main rivals, these being either the 508 SW or, more importantly, the related Skoda Superb, and while the interior is hugely improved from other VWs, it's still a bit plain for a car of this calibre. However, in many regards the Volkswagen is excellent and something well worth consideration, especially if you're thinking of just defaulting to a Tiguan or similar.
