VW Arteon, czyli lepsza hybryda jest nawet na paznokciach! (TEST PL 4K) | CaroSeria

VW Arteon, czyli lepsza hybryda jest nawet na paznokciach! (TEST PL 4K) | CaroSeria

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When we asked what would you like to know about today's car, the most common answer was: NOTHING. That's odd! This car is popular and great, this is the third time we're showing it. Diesel liftback, petrol station wagon, and today's version. It is supposed to be so special, VW gives these leather gloves extra. VW Arteon. Let's start with why this one is so different from the other two Arteons.

This is it. Hidden under the hood. 1.4 TSI. But with these orange wires which suggest there's an electric motor as well. And it has 115 hp. The total power is 218 hp. Pretty good. It should be quite fast! But there's no AWD, called 4 Motion in VW. All the power is transfered to the front. That's too bad. What else? The 10.8 kWh battery, placed in the fuel tank space.

While the fuel tank was moved under the rear seats. It has 50L capacity instead of the previous 65l. Unfortunately, there are some weak points. First, the socket. It's easy to open now, when it's clean. But yesterday was snowing and it was impossible to open the frozen flap!

Second thing. It can take only up to 3.6 kW current. That's how the onboard charger works. So, even pluggin it in a 20 or 22kW post will still mean charging it with 3.6 kW speed. And this means charging it fully will take 3 or 3.5 hours. And even 6 hours using regular home socket.

And it will last for 58 km. That's the official range. But in today's conditions it will be much, much, much smaller. Reaching 30 km around town will be a success. And 15 km driving 120 km/h on a highway. What about the dimensions? The length and witdh are the same as diesel or petrol version, but it's 8 mm shorter. And what's interesting, the wheelbase is different. Maybe that's a mistake? Or maybe moving the tank changed it? 3 mm different. Than diesel and petrol Arteons. The height depends on the suspension, though.

DCC adaptive suspension, changing in various modes, is standard here. Why? To hide the extra weight. I guess standard suspension wouldn't cope with it. It's 300 kilos heavier! 20% heavier than 1.5 TSI Arteon.

We've got the R-line version, with a few extra elements, like this one and these black inserts. There's no LED connecting these two lights, but LED headlights are standard. You can also pay 4 or 5k for adaptive ones. This version also comes with black sunroof and black spoiler. It is very pretty overall, with black and chrome elements, and I like these end caps.

The real exhaust pipe is somewhere there. Very far, I can't see it. These exhausts are fake. Now, the biggest difference between PHEV and diesel or petrol. The trunk. I don't know if you remember - if not, you can click here to watch - we did pack a stroller, luggage, trash bags etc. to Arteon. It had 575l volume and it was adjustable. This one, due to the battery and placing the tank, is 130l smaller.

Like, one big luggage. Even though it still seems very long and spacious. But it's shallower. Let's check how does effect the comfort. All the wires are here! That's why the white gloves are needed. One luggage. Will it fit this way? Nope, the blind's in the way.

But this way it will be fine. Let's take this one out. You won't carry your wires on a trip to Croatia, right? This one won't fit either... There's some room left, for backpacks or bags. Or cabine bags. But there's no way it will shut down with the third luggage here. I won't even try.

But can take the blind out and put the luggage other way round? One, two... maybe this way? Three huge suitcases would be great. But will it shut down? Yes! Visibility will be limited, of course, and let's hope the rear window is glued properly.

What else? There's a box under the floor, for a net and fire extinguisher. It's all covered with styrofoam, and it can be lifted up. The batteries and tank are hidden somewhere inside. It seems very cheap, I must say. The rubber also looks poor, the water will stay - also close to the lock.

And it's all over the carpet... It was only just washed. How did you rinse it?! Look now. Once the rear seats are folded, there's a flat, enormous space. I can crawl in to show you. 2 meters! Bąk's down.

I like the tailgates in liftbacks or SUVs coupe. They're not hangin over your head. I'm tall and I'm not banging my head. Cool. On the other hand, it won't protect you from rain or snow. It has cons and pros. Silny purchased so many lamps, I can't even get in! Wait, I'm just lowering the seat. Now, forward, and it's fine by me. I don't need to stretch my legs. Now let's see what happens behind me.

The seat can be heated! Let me turn it on now. Wow, there's so much room for knees! I can put my feet under the passenger's seat and I'm very, very comfortable. There's one issue: above my head. But I'm not surprised in a car this kind. The sunroof doesn't hide between the roof and the headliner, it goes up, so the room is similar to the one in a liftback without a sunroof. I think it will be fine for 1.7m tall person. The knees room is impressive. The middle tunnel is quite high, though. Someone smaller can sit here, but only for a moment with legs on each side.

ISOFIX is easy to access and I like the fact there are no caps. The seat itself is comfortable, with nice support, the headrest goes a bit into my neck. Or no, it doesn't. I need to keep my head forward, otherwise I'm touching the ceiling. Normally I would sit this way. That's not an option. The seat is profiled very well, with a long seating. Two ugly cupholders. I hate them sticking out like this.

I can't even keep my elbow here, it falls in. And it's so... bendy. Look how it's moving. Props for the ski sleeve, especially the seats can be folded in 40:60 ratio. Respect. Now, about the quality. There's no genuine leather, only kind of alcantara. That's basic fabric in R line. Or more like a cheap carpet. This leather is artifcial, as well as this on the back of the seat. This elements is nice, covered with soft fabric, not plastic as usual.

The doors are finished very nicely. This one is soft, this is plastic, but it's decent. This one is also soft... the stitchings could have been more even, though. Look at them. Was it sewn by a 9-year old? My son's handmade toy looked better. This part is semi-hard, semi-soft. That's really weird. I wouldn't like to keep my elbow for too long here.

But it's practical and I guess that was the goal. That's amazing. We've been standing here for half an hour now, the car is turned on - we want to keep it warm inside for us - and it already ate two battery bars! 10.8 kWh isn't a lot, I'm afraid. And it's not showing the power left in percentage, only with these bars. Like fuel. And it has 8 bars. How much battery's left? No idea, I've got 3 bars.

Take them and count them, does it mean it's 25%? Or 30%? For God's sake, why? What's more, you won't find any info about the range on electricity. There's only one joint range. The rest of interior looks the same as in other Arteons. It's nice and pleasant. This is supposed to be carbon, but it costs 400 PLN, so it's fake. There's ambiente illumination and 5k PLN sunroof. Or 4200 PLN when you take a package: illumination and sunroof. It's worth it.

I love the VW's driving position. It's always so ergonomic! The seat adjustment is mixed. I need to adjust the height manually, as well as forward/backwards. But tilt adjustment is electrical and that's cool, because it's very precise this way. The seat is very comfortable, there's an extra pull-out thigh support.

The armrest has a very vast adjustment, I like it in VWs. I can keep my arms in a very comfortable position, even on a really long trip. The armrest has a tiny box, enough for a wallet and cigarettes. But there are two USB-C ports. Too bad that the lighter socket is in the open.

We've got an induction charger, but it's placed in a very strange way. Look: it's very hard to put your phone inside and it's even harder to pull it out. We've got a touch AC panel, but it doesn't give you these specific vibrations like in Porsche or Audi. You can control some features here, but most of them are in this panel. The LCD has nice, modern graphics and it's working way smoother than in the new Golf or ID.3. I guess you already know how can it be customized, every new VW has the same system, even the new Polo. I guess.

The wheel has new buttons with intuitive signs, but there are not physical buttons. - I'm sorry, you can't play music now. Try again later. Alright, thank you! You can also turn the wheel heating on here. There's not much room above my head, because of the sunroof. The headrest is fine, but I'm touching it here. So, if you're 1.9 m tall, don't choose a sunroof.

Let's start with e-mode. This is where you can choose the driving mode. We want to choose, of course... What? Why? There's over a half of battery and I can't put the electric mode on? Maybe Eco? Maybe it's recharging now? Did I turn something on? What? Why is it not available? Oh, OK. I get it. Now we can do it. When you put it in the hybrid mode, you can set to what level can the battery fall. We had a half of it. And at this point the vehicle's using the hybrid to keep the battery level.

Why? This way it will save some energy to drive around town. But we'll go to zero. Now we can switch to the EV mode. The 115h electric motor is more than enough for city driving. It's pretty dynamic. Of course, it will change above 100 km/h. But it's really fine with a kick down.

And I can feel the six-speed DSG shifting gears. Even in the EV mode. But now: kick down, downshift, drive. And what happens when I double the kick down? Petrol engine starts running. But the vehicle is going back to the EV mode automatically and that's pretty cool. And not so obvious. We've tested plug-ins where kick down made the car switch to petrol engine and needed going back to the EV manually. But look at it now. We've only started and there's only half of the battery left. 5kWh. I'll reset the computer and we'll check how far can it go using half of the battery.

It has only just went down, so I'm guessing there should be 5 kWh left. Taking VW data about 15.8 consumption, it should last for 30 km. This DCC suspension is coping really nicely in this comfort setting. It's elastic. Standard rims are 18", not too large, so the comfort level is also higher.

You can brake with recuperation and shift gears at the same time. Cool. You can see it here. I'll speed up a bit, the gear's shifted, I'm taking my foot off, it's coasting. But once I'm moving the paddle, I can see it's recharging. I guess the stop lights are on, I can feel it slowing down. There's no one pedal option, but the recuperation is also working when I'm braking with the pedal, obviously. The recuperation is limited with the onboard 3.6 kWh charger, so it's not too strong.

The energy recovery will be limited, also in city driving. If you want to recover more energy, you need to enter the recharging mode. Or set to what level can the battery fall. Now I pushed it to the max and we're in hybrid mode. I can feel the car is loaded and it should recharge the battery.

But still, this is a 3.6 kWh charger. So it will take at least 3 hours ride to charge the battery. Let's say, it will be 300 km. Just to charge the battery from zero to full. And the fuel consumption will be 1.5l-2l/100 km higher in this mode. You'll use 4-6 fuel liters more only to charge the battery for 30 km. What's the point here? It will cost you 30 PLN! That makes no sense at all. Now, let's check the 0-60 time using only electric motor.

All set, reset done. No sports mode, kick down and that's all. I can feel the gear change very strongly. Oh, downhill. The result won't be credible. So. Arteon needs 16.88 seconds to make 0-60 using electric motor only. Let's say, 17 seconds. I wouldn't call it great, but I wouldn't call it bad either. It's decent.

Up to 70 km/h it's really dynamic. And I'm sure you need 20 or maybe 15 seconds to make 0-60 with your daily car. This result lets you drive using only electric motor. The real question is: how long can you use it? Look: we've done 9 km and the battery is almost empty now. And I'm not exceeding 90 km/h!

Let's try to speed it up to maximum. Using electric motor, of course. VW says it's 140 km/h. Well, seriously! 130 km/h with no problem at all and still in the EV mode. But the truth is, our battery's almost out. Petrol engine's on. So, what's the real range? In today's weather conditions, miserable 22 km. Let's make it 25. I'm really sorry, but that's crap. Not a range. Maybe in summer. Maybe! When the temperature is nice, you'll be able to reach 40-50 km. Now, let's see the fuel consumption in hybrid mode. On an expressway. 120 km/h, cruise control, set.

We're on a highway, let's make it 130 km/h. A bit faster than usual. I'd like to check the soundproofing. I must say, for a frameless doors car, it's quiet! I can hear the air and the tyres, because the road is wet.

But seriously, I like the silence. I think that these comfortable seats, spaciousness and quite good audio system can be nice on the road. Apart from the fact that my head is constantly banging against the roof. Alright. 6.7l/100 fuel consumption, driving 130 km/h with an empty battery. Yeah, I know, diesel would make one liter less. But that's not a diesel. This is a 218 hp hybrid and this is a good result for a plug-in. The aerodynamics also plays role here, its shape causes less air resistance than a SUV. And it's also lighter.

Last thing to check. The battery's out, the conditions are rather poor, we have only front drive. Can we make 0-60 in 7.8 seconds? That's the official VW result. Let's switch to GTE mode, electric boost, and turn the Sport mode on. Oh, they need to be used separately. Let's start with the GTE. Come on, this boost... and the sound is so artificial! Seriously, so artificial sound.

And what's the result? 8.7 seconds. 1 second worse than they said. It was supposed to be 7.8. We made 8.7. Maybe their numbers swapped places? Let's give it one more shot. But now, vehicle... pressure control system...

vehicle... status... settings... tyres... ESC, ASR off! Let's see how it goes in the Sport mode. A bit of a wheel spin... We're in Sport mode, not GTE boost. That's better! 8.1 seconds with a wheel spin. I think 7.8 seconds would be availble on a dry road. Or even better! To sum up. This Arteon hybrid with a pretty efficient and dynamic electric motor.

Arteon hybrid which is well soundproofed and invities you on a longer trip. At the same time it makes 0-60 in less than 8 seconds. It's pretty inside and outside and quite spacious. With comfortable rear seats, as long as you're max 1.75 m tall. On the other hand, the Arteon hybrid's range isn't poor. It's f***ing poor. Especially in winter, 25 km max. The charging takes forever thanks to the onboard 3.6 kW charger. The recuperation is also very poor, because you need to drive 300 km to charge the battery. And you'll use 1.5-2l/100 km fuel more than usually. Last but not least, the Arteon hybrid is 40k PLN more expensive than a comparable, TSI, 7-speed DSG transmission, 190 hp petrol version.

Which has the same 0-60 result and higher maximum speed. And don't forget this one has a smaller trunk. The truth is, without financial aid for PHEVs, this car has absolutely no sense. Something went wrong between marketing, engineering and accounting. The engineers did they job, the accountants valued the product and the marketing guys need to sell it. Or bulls**t us. This is the real name of this vehicle. One huge s**t, not a hit.

2023-01-08 12:34

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