New Volkswagen Golf Mk 8 hybrid

New Volkswagen Golf Mk 8 hybrid - car review

When is clever too clever? That was the question we kept asking ourselves when wrestling with the new Volkswagen Golf’s digital dash, touch screen controls and voice actuation systems.

Volkswagen is making much play on these things with the new, Mk8 version of this car, which it describes as ‘intuitive,’ but your analogue era correspondent wasn’t alone in sometimes finding them awkward.

Getting the sat-nav spoken instructions to work is pretty straightforward once you are familiar with the way it works. But up until that point it can be a challenge. The voice command control system, which has to be addressed with the words 'Hello Volkswagen', was not very helpful in sorting this out, either.

The Golf I drove was a pre-production car, so up-to-date that VW doesn't have a confirmed UK price or full specification for it yet, so perhaps some of these glitches will be solved in production versions. VW insist that the system makes sense after spending "two or three minutes" with it, but that hardly makes the car get in and drive friendly.

The latest Golf is otherwise an attractive and capable new car, packed with convenient features.

Even the basic version gets lane keeping, lane assist and other automatic braking and anti-collision warning systems, including pedestrian monitoring. Golfs are now better at talking to smart phones, and will apparently keep each other informed of congestion and accidents.

There are LED lamps front and rear, which are excellent. Model for model, Golfs are also cleaner and more efficient than before.

The latest Golf also has a pleasing solidity which has always been part of its appeal, and the interior was comfortable and civilised. Some versions have ambient lighting, with about thirty permutations, which might have more to do with showroom appeal than anything else.

There will be plug-in hybrid, 1.0 petrol and 2.0 diesel versions, but initially buyers can choose between a mix of petrol and diesel 1.5s, with six-speed manual and seven-speed twin clutch self-shifting transmissions. These include a mild hybrid petrol 150PS version - a first for the model - which we drove on this occasion.

It changed its own gears swiftly and smoothly, was quiet, refined and pulled well. The handling was tidy and taut and it rode with a commendable softness not always found in German cars.

The latest Golf is good-looking, accomplished, generally nice to use and has many clever, thoughtful features, but on first acquaintance, there are simply too many functions and too much information. An additional switch, or button or two would have been welcome.