Although the Volkswagen Golf is the most popular model of its class in Europe, it is not all a bed of roses for the seventh-generation hatchback. Volkswagen UK has just stopped taking orders for the Golf GTE plug-in hybrid, citing production bottlenecks that have caused “unreasonable” waiting times for the Golf GTE.
According to AutoCar UK, the bottlenecks in the production line were not pinned down to a supply issue or a fault in production, hence the only solution for Volkswagen to avoid excessively long waiting times for the Golf GTE was to suspend orders for the model. However, the Passat GTE – which shares the same powertrain combo as the Golf remains available to order.
A Volkswagen statement reads: “Due to bottlenecks in production and in order to not impose unreasonable waiting times on our customers for new car orders, temporarily the Golf GTE cannot be ordered. We will inform you as soon as this model is available to order again.” While the Golf is one of the best-selling cars in the UK, the GTE is the slowest-selling variant of the lot.
Although a locally assembled Golf GTE with its 1.4-litre plug-in hybrid motor that returns 1.4 litres per 100 km would be an extremely compelling package for Malaysians, there are two main reasons why Volkswagen Passenger Cars Malaysia (VPCM) are unable to bring it into our local market. And judging from the situation in UK, perhaps it’s a good thing they didn’t.
