All electric cars are not created equal. While most electrics boast flashy, quirky exteriors, they don't always have the street credentials to back-up these eccentric appearances. Enter the new Volkswagen Golf Blue-e-Motion: a car that truly embraces the future. It recently won the RAC Future Car Challenge, which covered a fifty-seven-mile route from Madeira Drive in Brighton UK to Pall Mall in the center of London, UK. The Golf took the title of Most Energy Efficient Regular Car (Prototype) class and was driven by VW engineer Folko Rohde.

The rankings for this challenge were based upon using the least amount of energy to cover the designated route which the Volkswagen achieved by using lithium-ion batteries, a top speed of 86mph, and a 0-62mph run of less than twelve seconds. The brake pedal also aids energy maximization with its battery regeneration process, which reduces the amount of energy that would otherwise be wasted at such times as traffic-light stops. In many ways, though, the Golf Blue-e-motion is almost identical to its Volkswagen Golf brother.

This is all great news, but what makes it revolutionary is that the Golf Blue-e-Motion could be VW's first completely electric vehicle sold in the United States. This version of the Volkswagen Golf will be tested in various small, specific markets throughout Europe soon, but isn't likely to reach the U.S. until it's completely tested and refined, sometime around 2014.

Although the Golf EV has yet to be released to the mass-market, the 2012 Passat BlueMotion, a vehicle with one of the lowest-polluting and most efficient engines on the market today and a forerunner of the Golf Blue-e-motion, is currently available in the U.S. With a C0₂ emission rate of only 109 g/km and a combined fuel economy of 68.9 mpg, the  2012 Passat Blue Motion is also impressive.

Interested in learning more about VW's new EV vehicles? Stay tuned, and in the meantime stop by at see us at Fletcher Jones Volkswagen. Located at 1111 Clark St., Chicago, IL, we're glad to answer any questions you might have about our rapidly evolfing new Volkswagen inventory.