We got our first Hybrid, golf GTE

[pistolpete12]

Well with the wife only doing short school journeys, and round to her friends house, we had been looking at hybrids for a while

she had a mk6 golf gti, which was burning oil, we started looking back at Ford Kugas, tiguans, and other suv diesels, but 1, I am not a fan of diesels. 2, she only does short journeys.

this then brought our discussion back to hybrids, our first port of call was the outlander, which all in all seems to do the job, eventually she upped her budget and bought a 2017 mk7.5 golf GTE
I have got to say, its lovely. one of the nicest cars we have ever owned, normally he have high mileage ratty cars.

After driving it, i really like the hybrid, even considering getting myself a 330e, but not for a while yet, especially with my work installing chargers

Anyway, i am now looking at home charging
a great wealth of info reading through this thread https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

With the type 2 charging, does it just know what to supply the car and you just set the charger at 7kw? as some chargers show you can switch between 3.5 and 7 kw? i am not sure what the max charge rate is for a GTE

I do already have an outside 32amp RCD (type 1) socket, So i could either swap that out to be a charger, as it was for the old hot tub, or purchase one of the 32amp blue commando plug chargers , anyone used these?
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Jolt-Portable-Adjustable-...

i would probably get a proper charger and just swap out the socket for the charger. I would also go tethered as its round the back of the house mounted on the shed, so not too much of an issue for how it looks, also means the wife doesn't have to drag it out the car every day


cheers people, i am off to do more reading

[pistolpete12]

plfrench said:

I don't think it is it really worth charging a hybrid with a relatively small battery on anything other than 3pin at home? It'd be less than four hours from empty to full, so just plug in over night and job done.

Full EV, absolutely worth going 7kW charger.

Fair enough, i just know the 3 pin socket is not always best for constant high load draw, another reason i was looking at the 32a commando socket
We do just plug it in over night and its all done, so no issues there at all

I have an outside socket for it was considering mounting the charging lead up on the wall so we dont have to keep taking it out the boot every night, as its the only place we will use the three pin plug

[pistolpete12]

sjg said:

GTE is 3.6kw (16A) max. You don’t have to worry about matching anything up, the car will only take what it, the cable and charge point are capable of.

If you’re getting a charge point fitted they’re quite expensive as they now need to be smart, the electrical regs are more stringent and the grant went away. If you can keep a 13A socket and the granny charger out of the weather I’d be inclined to use that, you can still fill it in a few hours. Definitely worth making sure it’s as easy as possible to plug in, you can cover a lot of miles on electric if it’s always full at the start of the day.

They’re good cars, I had one for 2 years on lease and it would still be a really good fit for our use.

ahh perfect i did wonder what its max was
i have a weather proof 13a socket i use at the moment, i wasn't sure how the granny charger block holds up the the weather permanently if mounted on an outside wall

[pistolpete12]

[pistolpete12]

plfrench said:

With the e-Golf we had you could drop the current draw all the way down to 3A, if you wanted to reduce the strain so to speak. It might be the same on the GTE. Perhaps a 6A (I can't remember what the full options were) would be a good balance of time vs current draw?

We used a 3 pin at 13A for about 7 months before we had a 7kW charger installed and it seemed fine. We plugged the 3 pin into a socket inside the garage and then just poked the cable out under the garage door.

I found that menu the other day, i might drop it down as it charges over night, so even if i drop it to 7 amp itll still be charged by morning
At the moment i'm just letting the car sort it out

[pistolpete12]

Malcolm E Boo said:

I have just taken a Passat GTE as a company car after having two Passat Diesels.

I am very impressed with this car the hybrid tech and how it works is very clever and the regen braking and charge when driving is just pure wizardry.

I only have a 3 pin plug and charge it off that overnight with no issue. I run the lead under the garage door and plug the car in from there. I just switch the plug off when I am not at home.

This car is far more economical than the diesel Passats and I save around £200 a month in company car tax. What's not to like.

I looked at the passats for me, they look pretty good

I really like the regen braking, the wifes getting used to it now too

[pistolpete12]

ajprice said:

Fair enough, petrol or plain hybrid it is.

We can just top up the GTE a bit, not full charge every time
It will also fully charge itself.
Quicker if you put in in charge mode.

I used it for work today in through back roads averaged 198MPG ( had it on EV mode most of the way just to see)
Which will be great when my work installs EV chargers too
All of the wifes running around is in EV, and use Hybrid the rest of the time going out further
normal hybrid we average 69ish MPG see much more though, depending on the journey

Like said earlier about the Passat it goes further than the battery range suggests due to it self charging if needed,
B is a a great mode to drive in, I also found it rolls for a really long time in D

I am sticking to the normal 13A plug, it works for us

We are both enjoying it greatly

[pistolpete12]

the wife's running around this week has purely been electric, shops school run etc
She has gone from her Golf GTI doing 20 ish mpg on the journeys she was doing to 300