THERE was no escaping the gleam in the eyes of the people I met while trying to plug the Golf into a public charging point to add more free miles to the journey.

None of the drivers was in a Golf GTE - it's too new to see many on the road - but they were all solid converts of life with a battery doing the work. It's saving them a small fortune, they reckoned.

Two were driving Nissan Leafs, an all-electric car that simply stops when the juice runs out (after 90 miles when I tried one), but their owners simply planned recharge stops, or contemplated hiring a conventional car for the occasional long drive.

The Golf GTE won't go anywhere near that far on electricity alone, with an optimistic 31 miles quoted by its maker. The best I managed, with air con off and never exceeding 50mph, was 24 miles.

All of them delightfully smooth and quiet, it must be said, as the electric motor pulled this spacious and quite weighty machine away from a standstill with the insistent strength of gravity turned on its side.

And when the electric power is spent, the petrol engine switches itself on and you proceed with a little more noise from up front but with a range only limited by finding a filling station.

Topping up the battery from a three pin domestic plug takes under four hours and costs pence. It was faster (and free) from the charge points I found in a couple of town centres, but be warned, the big white rapid charging boxes at motorway services won't work on the GTE.

Anyway, after precisely 601 miles the dashboard monitor showed an overall fuel consumption of 69.2mpg. That included several battery top ups but one long journey on mostly petrol power alone (with no charger at the overnight halt).

So even with a short all-electric range, the GTE was a thrifty machine. Push the GTE button by the gear selector and it's a quick one too; combining both power sources to turn the car into a properly swift hatchback.

Stiffer springs than a conventional Golf and bigger alloy wheels firm up the ride and provide something like a sporty feel on corners, while a thick rimmed steering wheel and subtly tartan trim play on the junior GTI theme inside.

Volkswagen builds an all-electric e-Golf (£26,325 after grant) and it will take the car quite briskly more than 100 miles before you're stuck needing a recharge. For rather less (£24,965) you could go for the all-petrol Golf 1.4 TSI with automatic gearbox, more than enough performance and a likely mid-40s to the gallon.

Sorry for all the figures, but there are more. Run a Golf GTE as your company car and both your pocket and the firm's bottom line will be considerably boosted by the tax incentives the government uses to tempt more of us down the greener road. No London congestion charge, either.

A further incentive to look hard at a GTE, despite the high purchase price, is a list of standard kit that runs from a fine sat nav system, six-speed automatic gearbox and adaptive cruise control to a DAB radio, automatic air conditioning and parking sensors front and rear.

The boot is smaller than you'll find in a conventional Golf (the big battery means the petrol tank has to be moved rearward) but it's still a decent size. There's also a space-saver spare wheel instead of the dreaded can of gloop, so you won't be stuck with a puncture when a rock takes out a sidewall.