I just spent 10 days in one of my new favorite cars: the 2017 VW GTE. It’s kind of a good news/bad news situation, though.
Let me explain a bit. The VW GTE is a lot like the GTI–a sporty, four-door hatchback with the unmistakable DNA of VW’s legendary hot hatches. But while the GTI gets along thanks to a …
The only car I've ever owned that I can really say I loved is my current MS3. It looks dumb, drives like it knows what it's doing, and straddles that line where it's firm but not uncomfortable. Yes it has been heavily modified to get that way, but in it's current state it's what I want (There was a bunch of planning that went into it.) I occasionally contemplate getting rid of it when I'm having a bad day, then quickly come to the conclusion that I've driven a number of it's competitors and replacements and I really don't feel the urge to own any of them. I'd have to move to something totally different like a V70 Polestar or a CTS-V, which are entirely different experiences, and I'd still find something I'd change about them.
I guess I'm one of those people where if I don't walk away from the car feeling like I enjoyed driving it to work that day I don't have the desire to own one.
I love hot hatches. Nothing in the world like the dual purpose hot hatch. It can carve canyons AND haul the groceries, sometimes at the same time. I miss my 318ti
Can the electric be used in conjunction with the gas engine, or only separately?
It's nice to be able to tool around on electric only, but it would be awesome to be able to use the torque of that electric motor to add 100 ponies at will to the performance side! 
In reply to SVreX:
That would be awesome!
The reason electric and gas peak power don't simply add up is that they occur at different rpms. Electric motors start with all the torque and then lose it as rpms go up. Gas engines do something close to opposite. What i think is often overlooked about the interplay of the two powerbands is that while the total peak number may not be impressive, they often deliver that peak power, or something close to it, across a very wide plateau. My old Honda Insight was like this. It had a low peak output (around 70hp) but what didn't come across from the numbers was that it made that peak power pretty much constantly from 3000 rpm on up. Any time a 6500 rpm motor is giving you 100% from 3000-6500, the lack of an impressive 'peak' is somewhat ameloriated by the fact that what peak there is is present almost everywhere.
Another interesting unintuitive benefit to some hybrid powertrains is the CVT present in most (not the GTE) tend to give you better performance over time than the peak number would suggest. For example, my old GS450h with its peak power of 'only' ~345hp was deceptively fast despite its 4100 lbs because you had 345hp the entire time you were flooring it. Compare that to the more powerful 370hp XJR i was able to spend time with during my GS450h ownership. It had higher peak power, but only for a few hundred rpm before it shifted and dropped away from that peak. The GS450 was much faster in the long run. Even compared to my 300hp 911 which is ~1100 lbs lighter (!!), the GS450 was only slightly slower on a long highway pull. Most cars would go faster by dropping 1100 lbs than adding ~40hp, but the CVT made magic possible by staying on peak power rpm nearly 100% of the time.
There is so much about hybrids that doesn't come across on a spec sheet. I've enjoyed both versions of the GTE coverage in GRM (print and online) and i hope more people get exposure to hybrid experiences like this that deliver more than the sum of their spec sheets would suggest.
Classic style#1 Linear and immediate response to inputs#2 Light weight#3
All three in a single package please
dculberson wrote: In reply to SVreX: That would be awesome!
Well, even if it doesn't come from the factory that way, it sounds like it's got everything onboard to do it, and can perhaps be hacked.
mad_machine wrote: I love hot hatches. Nothing in the world like the dual purpose hot hatch. It can carve canyons AND haul the groceries, sometimes at the same time. I miss my 318ti
I daily an S52 swapped 318ti and it's amazing. 3000lbs with 212whp is perfect for commuting, highway trips and just cruising around. I also swapped in 2.93 gears which make it even more practical and faster(unconfirmed).
Who else has even made an RWD hot hatch?
I don't even like BMWs... I only own one because manual Mercedes are hen's teeth.
We're still doing hybrids wrong. Let me know when we have a small 2 or 3-cyl CRDI diesel hooked up as a powerplant for the batteries only. What kills the current method of having ICE hooked up to the drive wheels is the constant need to change rpm's. ICE's have a narrow range where they are truly at peak efficiency and thats usually not when it's going up and down the rpm range.
Seriously.... locomotives have been doing it right for decades. Make it a plug in hybrid so you can charge at home, have the range extension of the ICE to power the batteries. We could be pushing triple digit fuel economy and lower emissions at the same time while still having something that can accomplish the main goal of transportation: getting you from point A to point B.
In reply to Bobzilla:
I feel that way too. I'm sure there's some reason why it it hasn't been done yet, I'm just not sure what it is. I keep seeing various items pop up about a new rotary engine (for packaging reasons) that acts just as described. Every single time it may as well be vaporware.
In reply to The0retical:
The Volt has been the closest. But didn't it sometimes actually power the car more than just recharge the batteries?
I'm sure there's some reason why it it hasn't been done yet, I'm just not sure what it is.
Well, the main reason is because manufacturers assume (maybe know?) that consumers aren't willing to deal with a much reduced performance envelope once their battery pack runs low. Basically, if your battery was giving you 120hp worth of acceleration at WOT, then your generator has to be able to put out 120hp (plus conversion losses) to maintain the full performance envelope when the battery pack itself runs low. And once you get to that point, it's more efficient to have the generator directly powering the wheels than it is to convert motion to electricity and then electricity back to motion.
Now that battery packs are becoming large enough that it's impractical to, for example, empty 50 miles of range by flooring it for 12 miles straight, the idea of having a relatively low-power but super-efficient range extender is becoming more feasible. I still don't think that will mean that it becomes common.
SVreX wrote: Can the electric be used in conjunction with the gas engine, or only separately? It's nice to be able to tool around on electric only, but it would be awesome to be able to use the torque of that electric motor to add 100 ponies at will to the performance side!
"GTE" mode gives you full thrust from all available sources. All modes (electric, hybrid, GTE, charge, ICE only) are user selectable or you can let the computer decide based on your goals (economy, performance, etc.)
In reply to JG Pasterjak:
Oh boy...
I wouldn't be the first one in my family to ship a car over from Germany. 
SVreX wrote: In reply to JG Pasterjak: Oh boy... I wouldn't be the first one in my family to ship a car over from Germany.
Don't think I didn't think about it.
I was also checking the prices of Audi A3 e-tron Sportbacks, which are the only US availability of the powertrain. Sadly the Audis are priced a bit out of my range. Takes about $45k to get one decently optioned.
But, yeah, it's definitely a hybrid that works the way you want a hybrid to work, which is offering all the modes either manually or automatically. By modern standards it's not "fast," but how often to you actually need "fast" in a non-track car anyway? The cool thing is what it lacks in objective speed it makes up for with the instant torque of the electric motor. As a real-world car it's really fantastic.
PS: About two months after I got back from Germany when I had the GTE, I got an email from my contact at VW saying I had a speeding ticket that they wanted me to pay for (it had been sent to the VW office in Germany). After much google translating of the document they forwarded, it turns out I got nabbed in France by a speed camera.
71 km/hr in a 70 km/hr zone.
$45 later the French can suck my butt.
Geez. I have eaten expenses many, many times larger than that for my customers. Seems asinine. Maybe VW is just hedging all their bets until the dieselgate losses are well and truly over. 
Bobzilla wrote: We're still doing hybrids wrong. Let me know when we have a small 2 or 3-cyl CRDI diesel hooked up as a powerplant for the batteries only. What kills the current method of having ICE hooked up to the drive wheels is the constant need to change rpm's. ICE's have a narrow range where they are truly at peak efficiency and thats usually not when it's going up and down the rpm range.
So a diesel i3?
Vigo wrote: Geez. I have eaten expenses many, many times larger than that for my customers. Seems asinine. Maybe VW is just hedging all their bets until the dieselgate losses are well and truly over.
Meh. My offense, my dime. I think I had to deal with it personally anyway since I had to clear my name so they'll let me back into France again, since apparently 1-over puts you into Carlos the Jackal territory.
I love convertibles
I love aircooled horizontally opposed powered cars.
Learned to drive in a Bug Convertible, like a big go cart.
Bobzilla wrote: In reply to The0retical: The Volt has been the closest. But didn't it sometimes actually power the car more than just recharge the batteries?
Only when the batteries were depleted AND you were using full throttle to climb hills. Other than that, no, the engine just charged the batteries. The batteries were never depleted 100%, either, they only dropped to 20-25% charge, where the gas engine kicked on to maintain that charge level, which still gave enough battery power to use full throttle or cruise down the road while the engine maintained that level. I've even seen the Volt raise the charge OVER the hold level and shut the engine down until it came back in range, which tells me it could have charged the battery back to full while driving, though they chose not to do that.
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