Once upon a time, I was a VW Golf enthusiast. Both cars I’ve bought as an adult were Golfs: a 2008 Rabbit when I lived in Brooklyn and a 2016 Golf Sportwagen when I became a dad. My ongoing (attainable) automotive dream is to make a Golf GTI happen in some form.
That enthusiasm has waned, though. It’s not because I’ve resigned myself to the practical family crossover; It’s because VW itself has changed. The base Golf is gone; I die a bit inside every time my local VW dealer looks at my service history and tries to sell me on a trade-in for a front-wheel-drive Taos. Meanwhile, the Golf GTI has become less appealing.
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The Mk8 Golf GTI’s digital cockpit is nearly unusable, making the car itself almost thus as well. What fresh excitement does VW have in store with the 2025 refresh? Killing off the manual transmission option — a move that begs the question, what’s the point of even having a GTI anymore?
Compounding that disappointment is a missed opportunity. Recently, VW sent me the European press release for the refreshed Golf lineup, and went into great detail about a car America isn’t getting: the Golf GTE.
The Golf GTE sounds more exciting than the GTI
The Golf GTE is the more powerful plug-in hybrid Golf — essentially an electrified take on the GTI. The new version packs 268 horsepower. VW says the revamped battery pack offers 62 miles of electric-only WLTP-rated range (the equivalent, conservatively, of more than 40 miles under EPA testing). And the GTE is now capable of 50-kW DC fast charging.
The Volkswagen Golf GTE
3 photos
It would be a stellar competitor for the new Toyota Prius
Getting the Golf GTE in America would have been interesting (certainly more so than the automatic GTI). It would have met the current moment, where full EVs still don’t make sense for large numbers of people. And it would have provided a compelling alternative to the reigning North American Car of the Year, the Toyota Prius.
Imagine the Prius Prime PHEV, but add another 50 horsepower to the mix. Then swap in a six-speed dual-clutch transmission for the Prius’s CVT, and make it look like a hot hatch rather than a spaceship. That sounds … pretty great.
But, yes, there are perfectly good reasons America isn’t getting it
I acknowledge there are very good reasons why America is not getting the Golf GTE. It’s hard to make the case for the once-mighty Golf being a pillar for more investment here; the currently available Golf variants made up just over three percent of VW’s American sales last year. And the price tag for a hatchback would likely make Americans laugh out loud.
But it would have been nice to see VW offer something bold and forward-looking for America … something that didn’t feel like a resized Atlas crossover.
