This is as electrified as a Golf will get now. There's no e-Golf anymore, as that job has been taken over by the ID.3, so a plug-in hybrid will have to do.

Of course, there's still the GTE. But, to cater to more folks who are chomping at the bit for an electrified car there's this more sensible one now, too.

How is this different to the GTE, then?

Well, for starters, it doesn't have the body kit or sporty details inside. It looks like a Golf. Nothing more, nothing less. The only markers outside are a cap for the plug socket on the front left wheelarch and a teeny-weeny 'eHybrid' badge on the tailgate.

Is the PHEV powertrain any good?

In town, the eHybrid is zippy and keen to keep you in e-mode as much as possible – you pretty much have to kick the throttle into the firewall for the 1.4-litre TSI petrol engine to wake up. That's especially noticeable if you're flinging yourself up a motorway sliproad – that turbocharged four-cylinder growls like a wolf with a cold – even if the soundproofing manages to mask the gruffness of it all – and oddly doesn't add much to overall acceleration despite all the fuss.

But where the Golf surprisingly excels at is longer journeys. Over a 200-mile mostly-motorway journey, with a ¾ charged battery I managed 62mpg. Take THAT, diesel.

And it was relaxing on the way. Podcast on, e-motor and engine working in perfect harmony and not a lot of wind noise either – whether you like that face (complete with glowing bar at night) or not, the Golf certainly cuts cleanly through the air.

Also, some of that benefit comes from the new Golf eHybrid's spec. Your entry into electrified Golf ownership is the mid-level Style spec, but the PHEV version has smaller wheels with fat balloon tyres compared to a regular one – great for reducing rolling resistance and translating fewer jolts up your back.

Of course, to get the best fuel economy out of it, you not only need to be gentle but need a route planned through the standard VW navigation and leave the hybrid system in auto, so it can juggle e-assistance and engine power most effectively. Do this and it really works – instead of the Golf just burning its battery away in the first quarter of the journey, it sips that e-juice over the whole course.

I sense a 'but' coming...

But it is also a Golf. While that may have been a selling point in the previous generation, it's less so here. You must contend with that fiddly infotainment setup and a desperately plain interior, and the eHybrid's powertrain also throws in a tremendously soggy and inconsistent brake pedal – frustrating when you're pootling around in town.

VW says, managed right, the eHybrid is capable of up to 44 miles of e-range. During our test, we saw no more than 34 on the range predictor – still good, but those lost ten miles would elevate it above what else you can get for the money.

Otherwise, your choices for similar money are myriad; Skoda's Octavia iV and Seat's Leon eHybrid use the same tech but clock in cheaper in list and finance costs, and Peugeot's new 308 Hybrid looks amazing inside and out and has a little more performance for a similar price tag. Ford's Kuga PHEV, again available for roughly similar wedge, offers you SUV looks but with the potential for better efficiency.

VW Golf eHybrid: verdict

You need to want a Golf to really be won over. It's refined, smooth and comfortable just as VW's perennial family hatch should be, with a decent e-range. But the eHybrid is flanked by so many other more interesting or cars for a similar amount of money that there's little to convince you the Golf is the better option.

https://www.carmagazine.co.uk/car-reviews/volkswagen/golf-hybrid/

The current Rolls-Royce Ghost isn't a radical visual departure from the one it replaced, but in fact features only two carryover parts – the badge and the umbrellas. It's the product of an intense, five-year feedback loop between Goodwood's creative brains and its most influential customers. The result is a car that is both more of the same, but also less of the same.

And it's now been joined by a Black Badge version, developed alongside the regular Ghost. Black Badge editions of various Rollers have been selling very strongly in the five years since the sub-brand was launched. But does it really move the game along, or is it just another cunning way for Rolls-Royce to deprive wealthy customers of even more of their cash? We've donned our smartest slacks and driven both.

Post Opulence

Ghost buyers still wanted to drop over £200,000 on their new saloon, but they wanted their investment to be a little less obvious – and that led to Post Opulence, Goodwood's new understated design philosophy.

It's why the new Rolls-Royce Ghost is both cleaner and more minimalistic than the car it replaces. Fussy lines and features have been rubbed out, and the car uses some design cues seen in yachts – that other hobby of the super rich.

It still looks like a Ghost but zoom in and you'll find additional details such as an illuminated grille – less tacky than it sounds – fewer shutlines, and a Spirit of Ecstasy that now sits in a chrome island above the grille.

Inside, there's a noticeably modern feel, with quality materials now centre stage rather than intricate details. There's still plenty of the latter, as evidenced by the sparkling headliner and twinkling glovebox panel – but it's less cluttered.
This Ghost also gets all-digital dials with chrome surrounds, much like the Cullinan, while 100kg of soundproofing helps to push away the outside world.

What's it like to drive?

The Ghost may look slightly more refined on the outside, and that slight increase is mirrored in the driving experience; it's an experience full of contradictions.

Four-wheel drive is present, as is four-wheel steering (5 degrees opposite to front lock under 40mph, and the same way over), and when combined with a punchy V12 this baby Rolls is more nimble and engaging than the last.

That twin-turbo 6.75-litre V12 is a silent partner, though. Capable of 563bhp, it gets a retune on its way from the Cullinan, but still puts out prodigious torque; there's 627lb ft under your right foot, just a few hundred revs away from tick over.

The 12 cylinders lend themselves to effortless cruising power and decent efficiency, and when paired with low gears and the four-wheel-drive transmission, it's possible – and enjoyable – to drag all 2.5 tonnes of Ghost out of junctions as fast as physics allows.

The ride is also improved over the last car, mainly thanks to Goodwood's new Planar system. It consists of two parts: a couple of 'flagbearer' cameras that scan ahead and brace the suspension for the terrain, and a 3kg mass damper over every wishbone to soak up any extra energy transfer. The result is a filtered-out feeling of the road, and although there's still a sensation of grip, everything else is stripped away.

Adding to this strange sensation is the car's light but sensitive steering. Goodwood engineers have made the Ghost's Parthenon-like front end far easier to place than you'd expect, and it changes the way you drive the car. Within minutes you find yourself cleaning up steering inputs to minimise weight transfer, opting for smooth arcs and removing aggression on the brakes and throttle. You almost drive it like an EV.

Get into a groove and you'll carefully manipulate the Ghost's significant weight and power through its skinny steering wheel, and turn a B-road into a smooth rollercoaster. And at the bottom of those peaks and troughs, the Ghost handles compression better than before.

What's the Black Badge version like?

Black Badge is the Rolls-Royce sub-brand aimed at younger customers. From a sales point of view, it's working, with around 30 per cent of buyers opting for a Black Badge version where it's offered. (Bizarre fact: Rolls-Royce customers are now, on average, the youngest within the BMW group.) The starting price is £325,000 but, in reality, everyone will pay more than that, as the whole idea of Black Badge is to make every car different, with the customer's own choice of interior and exterior trim.

Although there's immense scope for individualisation, the basic changes that turn a Ghost into a Black Badge Ghost include beefier air springs, recalibrated transmission and brake action, different wheels, a new exhaust system, and more power and torque, increasing to 591bhp and 664lb ft respectively.

The look doesn't have to involve black paint, but there's generally less shiny brightwork, inside and out.

And to drive? It's very good. When you're pressing on, you get more help from the suspension, rear-wheel steering and quicker-shifting gearbox, making the Ghost more invigorating while still remaining highly composed. It's marginally louder, inside and out, but never unrefined.

It's much more expensive than any production car you might like to pick as a rival, so comparisons may be irrelevant. Bentley Flying Spur, Maserati Quattroporte Trofeo, AMG S-Class... the BB Ghost makes them all seem a bit insubstantial, remarkably. But the real comparison is probably not with cars from other manufacturers, but with having your Ghost modified by someone who isn't Rolls-Royce. Hard to imagine even the most talented customiser making such a good job of bringing out the performance potential of the Ghost, without losing its classiness and comfort.

Rolls-Royce Ghost: verdict

The new Ghost is better than the last car in every way, which wasn't exactly awful – but at these rarefied levels of refinement the improvement can only be subtle – even after tens of millions of R&D pounds. Rolls-Royce has spent a lot of time, and money, fixing issues that its customers probably never noticed, and the sum of these solutions is an ever-so-slightly better, distilled version of the Ghost.