Volkswagen has been on a learning curve with electric cars but now it’s heading towards the top of the class – says Robin Roberts (and WheelsWithinWales). It has flirted with electric cars for many years and a decade ago gave us their zero emission versions of the e-Golf and e-Up, adapted models of their better known petrol and diesel hatchbacks. VW engineers knew change was coming down the … [Read more...]
Volkswagen ID.3 Pro S – Road Test
Robin Roberts (WheelsWithinWales) puts the ID.3 through its paces… Of the legacy car-makers, Volkswagen has developed a very wide and strong range of new generation electric models. It has been working on electric cars for many years so it was probably only natural that modernising its best selling Golf family car would feature in its approach to the future, and the ID.3 fills the sector in … [Read more...]
VW ID.Buzz – Road Test
The Volkswagen ID.Buzz all electric multi-utility vehicle plugged in, charged and test driven by Robin Roberts (and Miles Better News Agency). Move over supercars and SUVs, there’s a new head turner on the road, the Volkswagen ID. Buzz MUV. Talked about for a few years and on sale last year in Britain, the very retro Buzz is one of the rare newcomers that manage to break with modern convention … [Read more...]
Volkswagen ID.5 – First Impressions
Chris Adamson samples VW’s all-electric ‘Premium SUV Coupé… (All words and photographs by, and copyright, Chris Adamson). Although relative late-comers to the electric vehicle segment, Volkswagen has been setting some benchmark figures with its ID family (part of its ACCELERATE brand strategy) starting with the ID.3 hatchback, which for some-time led the way in the segment, and then came the … [Read more...]
Volkswagen Taigo – Road Test
VW’S NEW TAIGO NEATLY FITS INTO THEIR CROSSOVER LINE-UP… …tried and tested by Robin Roberts (and Miles Better News Agency). Volkswagen is an inherently conservative car maker which has thrived on compromises to please its customers and its latest line up is no exception, but excels nevertheless. Broadly similar in style to its Volkswagen crossover stablemates, Taigo actually falls between the … [Read more...]
VW embraces alternative low emission ‘diesel’ fuels and continues development of internal combustion engines
Volkswagen acknowledges that alternative synthetic fuels for diesel engines can produce very low CO2 emissions, and the company says that it is continuing to develop internal combustion engines... At Wheels-Alive we have long been saying that it is not internal combustion engines per se that produce harmful emissions, but the fuels (usually fossil-based) on which they run. VW tells … [Read more...]
VW Golf Life 1.0 TSi – Road Test
ANYONE FOR GOLF? ROBIN ROBERTS (AND MILES BETTER NEWS AGENCY) PLAYS A ROUND WITH THIS VW MODEL… The VW Golf has often been held up as the benchmark for family hatchbacks and is frequently the best selling car in Europe, although not always in Britain. After the Beetle which rebuilt VW’s brand and fortune following WW2, the Golf was really the model that put the German company on the road to … [Read more...]
Ferdinand Piëch: 1937-2019
Ferdinand Piëch: 1937-2019. Kieron Fennelly looks back at an extraordinary and crucially important career in the motor industry… Ferdinand Piëch died suddenly on August 25th. Once the most powerful man in the auto industry, he was also instrumental in the early development of the Porsche 911 and on more than one occasion, its reprieve. From his earliest days where he worked with Hans Mezger … [Read more...]
VW Passat Estate Business – Wheels-Alive Road Test
Keith Ward is your guide... This is the eighth generation of the Passat, which since its launch in 1973 has racked up over 22 million sales worldwide and going on for half a million in the UK, where the estate version consistently outsells the saloon, £1,530 cheaper. Its star is not fading – in its latest form the Passat was named Europe’s Car of the Year 2015. And a telling tribute to its … [Read more...]
Volkswagen Passat
VW's latest Passat is actually the eighth generation since they introduced the name in 1973. By Tom Scanlan It's a completely new car and, as pretty well all manufacturers are managing at the moment, offers more efficiency in terms of fuel consumption and up to 14% cleaner emissions. Some of this is down to a weight saving of up to a massive 85 kilograms. Of course, no new car would be … [Read more...]
Latest Volkswagens Sampled
Kim Henson drives two of the latest VW Polos plus the new Golf SV and the rapid Golf R... As model names, Polo and Golf have in each case been with us for around four decades, but of course these justifiably popular Volkswagen models have evolved as the years have passed, and – as has always been the case – the latest versions represent current ‘state of the art’ design and … [Read more...]
Volkswagen Golf (third generation) Ecomatic 1.9 Diesel
Kim Henson goes back to the future in a fascinating Golf... Such is the rate of change in terms of technologies built into the latest cars, that I feel often it is useful to drive an older model to appreciate just how much things have altered. In any case, as friends and colleagues will testify, I need little excuse to drive any part of automotive history! To me, a car built in 1994 is not … [Read more...]