Volkswagen Golf GTE: car review | Martin Love

Volkswagen's new electric hybrid Golf is as green as they come, but can VW ever clean up its ruined reputation?

Price: 28,755 (with government grant)
Top speed: 138mph
0-62mph: 7.6 seconds
MPG: 166

After the scandals in sport, food and banking (doping, horse meat, Libor and the rest), only a fool would have bet against the motor industry not cheating the system, too. But no one would have fingered Volkswagen as the culprit. A byword for trust and decency for more than 75 years and the jewel of the German automotive industry, all reduced to lousy tricksters in the space of a single afternoon. That old adage that a good name takes a lifetime to win and a moment to lose has never been more true.