Electric Golf 'three years away' 15 | 11 | 2010

VOLKWAGEN WILL now wait until the next generation of Golf before introducing its battery-powered Blue-e-motion version; that means it will not go on sale until late until late 2013 at the earliest.

The Blue-e-motion made an appearance at the recent Brighton to London Future Cars run, but despite the rate of progress the electric vehicle family car is now unlikley to appear in the Mk6 and will, instead, be delayed until the new Mk7 Golf.

The current Mk6-based prototype Golf uses a 26.5kWh battery pack, marginally larger than that employed by the Nissan Leaf. And VW technicians explain that by using a three-stage (85kW, 65kW and 50kW) power output from the drive motor the prototype Golf can be teased into delivering a range up to 90 miles. And in a further development, the driver can select the amount of engine braking via paddle shifters.

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Jim McGill