In association with Pod
Electric Car Awards 2025: Best hybrid family car
With fully electric and plug-in hybrid cars now coming in all shapes and sizes, we’ve named the best new and used buys in every class. Here we look at the best hybrid family cars...
Volkswagen Golf 1.5 TSI eHybrid Match
Sliced bread. It’s one of the best things, and a staple of family life – much like the Volkswagen Golf. Few things satiate hunger as effectively and conveniently as a bit of buttered granary, and just like reaching for the Kingsmill is almost a reflex action when you’re peckish, a Golf is the default choice for many families when they pop out to pick up a new car.
And not without reason. The latest Golf has plenty of rivals, from the supermarket own brand Peugeot 308 and Vauxhall Astra to the semi-artisanal BMW 1 Series and Mercedes A-Class. And yet, in our taste test, we prefer the Golf to any of those – provided we’re talking about plug-in hybrids (PHEVs).
In the cheapest trim level you can buy it in (Match), the Golf eHybrid officially emits just 6g/km of CO2, putting it in the lowest non-electric benefit-in-kind tax bracket (6%), so company car drivers will have bulging pockets.
That’s not the only potential saving, either. Thanks to a hefty 19.7kWh (usable) battery, 88 miles of fully electric motoring is officially possible on a single charge. That means families who have a charger at home might visit petrol stations very seldom.
With 201bhp on tap, the eHybrid is much nippier than your average family car; the 0-62mph sprint takes just 7.4sec. What’s more, the Golf’s handling is tidy enough to make even mundane chores a pleasure if you take your favourite twisty route home, yet the suspension is pliant enough to shrug off urban potholes for relaxed pootling around the doors.
Like sliced bread, the Golf eHybrid is also quite affordable, given the goodness it packs. Not only does it significantly undercut the cheapest A-Class PHEV, but it’s also cheaper than a comparable Vauxhall Astra. And there aren’t many family hatches that can beat the Golf for space – fewer still as PHEVs.
Counting against the Golf eHybrid is that some of the dashboard controls – chiefly for fan speed and audio volume – are fiddly to use on the move. The boot is rather smaller than the regular Golf’s, too, and the latest model didn’t do brilliantly in our most recent Reliability Survey. Even accepting these weaknesses, though, the opposition is still toast.
Best used hybrid family car
Mercedes A250e (2020-present)
Price from £15,000
Plug-in A-Class is smart inside, good to drive and impressively swift, plus it has an official electric range of up to 44 miles.
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