Last Of The German Built Rabbit Golf Diesels. 5 Speed, 1.6l, on 2040-cars

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Volkswagen Golf GTE Sport Concept is good, clean, plug-in fun [w/video]

If racing and hypercars have shown us anything, it's that high performance and hybridization are not mutually exclusive. With the Golf GTE Sport Concept, Volkswagen is showing it understands that fact. This wild hatchback originally premiered at the annual Worthersee festival back in May, but it's making its auto show debut in Frankfurt. The Golf GTE Sport uses both gas and electric sources to develop 396 total system horsepower. That gas engine, a 1.6-liter, turbocharged four-cylinder, was swiped from the engine bay of Volkswagen's three-time World Rally Championship-winning Polo R WRC, and generates 295 hp on its own. A pair of electric motors – one per axle – each produce 113 hp, and are fed by a lithium-ion battery pack. Total electric range is an impressive 31 miles. Of course, you don't care about that. You care about what the Golf GTE Sport can do when you switch out of EV or hybrid mode and switch into GTE. In this setting, both the gas engine and electric motors kick in to deliver max performance. Sixty-two miles per hour arrives in just 4.3 seconds and the top speed is an impressive 174 mph. The styling is like a mix of older Golf concepts: VW's two Vision Gran Turismo cars, the Roadster and Supersport, with some of the current GTI thrown in. Check out our live images from Frankfurt and let us know what you think. World premiere of the Golf GTE Sport: Plug-in hybrid sports car catapults the GT idea to the future - Lightweight and high-strength body of the Golf GTE Sport is made of carbon - Concept car with a top speed of 280 km/h is a zero emission vehicle and a race car in one Five key facts about the Golf GTE Sport: 1. Golf GTE Sport is powered by a 295 kW / 400 PS plug-in hybrid system 2. Progressive Golf GTE Sport bridges the gap between road cars and racing sport cars 3. Avant-garde exterior design of the Golf GTE Sport perfects the idea of C-pillars with two-level construction 4. Golf GTE Sport debuts with digital instruments arranged on three levels and tailored to motor racing 5. Golf GTE Sport accelerates to 100 km/h in 4.3 seconds and has a top speed of up to 280 km/h on the racetrack Wolfsburg / Reifnitz, May 2015. Ringing in a new era: with the Golf GTE Sport presented as a world premiere at the legendary GTI event at Lake Worthersee on 14 May 2015, Volkswagen is catapulting the GT tradition into the future.

How the VW diesels perform in cheat mode

Are you tired of the Volkswagen diesel emissions scandal? Yeah? We are, too. But here's a story that, at the very least, gives us something resembling answers about one of the most important questions surrounding the firestorm – how will the affected cars perform when they're in their emissions-cheating test mode? Consumer Reports was able to find out, tapping into what it believes is the cheat mode. By turning the car to accessory mode, flipping on the hazards, and tapping the gas pedal five times, CR was able to defeat the auto-engaged traction and stability controls, which it believes activates cheat mode. The safeties will reengage if it detects the rear wheels spinning, so the next step was what CR called "a hack." The team unplugged the rear wheel sensors, so the car's computers couldn't tell whether the wheels were spinning. By the way, don't try this at home. With that done, CR hit the road, testing both a 2011 Jetta Sportwagen TDI and a 2015 Jetta TDI sedan in their normal and cheat modes. Why both cars? Well, the 2011 uses the EA188 diesel, which represents the bulk of the affected cars, while the newer Jetta uses the latest EA288, which just arrived for model year 2015. The results are, in a word, interesting. The EA188 engine lost 0.6 seconds on the way to 60 miles per hour while in emissions-compliant cheat mode, and fuel economy fell from 50 miles per gallon to 46. For the newer EA288, the 0-60 difference was negligible – just a tenth of a second – while the fuel economy dipped from 53 to 50 mpg. There are a few takeaways here. First of all, and as suspected, running in cheat mode did hurt both performance and fuel economy. But perhaps more importantly, even in emissions-compliant mode, both vehicles easily beat their EPA fuel economy estimates. According to FuelEconomy.gov, the highest rated 2011 TDI Sportwagen, the manual-trans model, was rated at 30 mpg city and 42 mpg highway, with a combined rating of 34 (the auto drops the city and combined ratings by one mpg, while the highway falls by three). The best a 2015 Jetta TDI sedan can do according to Uncle Sam, meanwhile, is 31 city, 46 highway, and 36 combined with the manual (again, the auto is worse, but only by a single highway mpg). Related Video:

VW readying two-row CUV concept for Detroit

We're likely getting yet another glimpse of Volkswagen's future crossover at the upcoming 2015 North American International Auto Show in Detroit, in January. According to Automotive News, two anonymous sources within the automaker indicate a CUV concept will be shown there. The concept is said to be a five-passenger preview of the brand's future seven-seat model. Previous versions of the crossover have carried the name CrossBlue (pictured above), but there was no indication whether or not that would continue. The original three-row concept debuted at the 2013 auto show in Detroit, and VW followed it up with the CrossBlue Coupe Concept in Shanghai later that year. In early 2014, the company announced the CUV would go into production sometime in 2016, along with plans to invest $7 billion in North America over the next five years. During the summer, the automaker made things even more official when it declared plans to invest $900 million to build a 538,000-square-foot expansion into its Chattanooga, TN, factory to assemble the new model. Production of the crossover was slated to begin by the end of 2016, at the time. According to Automotive News, even more changes in VW's CUV lineup are on the way. The Tiguan is reportedly getting an update next year that could be joined by coupe and long-wheelbase variants, as well.