BlueMotion - is it worth it?
Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2013 4:40 pm
My Hyundai Coupe getting rear-ended yesterday hastened my search for something to replace it. Hyundai seem to have lost the plot with their new Coupe thing ,and after a lot of searching it seems like the Scirocco is the only decent current coupe that doesn't attract boy-racer insurance or have other problems. Looking at many reviews it's hard to find anyone with anything bad to say about it, so I'm sold.
Looking at buying nearly-new (<10kmiles) , and will need to get something quickly, so possibles will be partly dictated by what's available so don't want to limit choices too much.
I spent a while on the VW site narrowing down the options and I'm now down to GT, Manual, Blue, probably 140PSes.
However I was struggling to find good info on pros/cons of Bluemotion, not helped as it seems to cover a range of features, not all of which are implemented in all models.
Start-Stop I understand. However I'm a little unclear about the regenerative braking thing - AFAICS it is included on the GT, but I couldn't find info on exactly how it works, in particular when it's recovered the energy, what does it do with it, and is it actually worthwhile.
As an electronics engineer I'm guessing it's probably mananging power flow between the alternator and battery - does it then use the alternator to boost power during acceleration? Does it use a bigger/seperate battery?
My usage is typically short (10-20 mile) motorway and heavy city traffic, and prefer tyre life, lower insurance and runing costs to turbo-nutter performance (no offence intended!) - is it worth limiting my search to the BlueMotion models?
Looking at buying nearly-new (<10kmiles) , and will need to get something quickly, so possibles will be partly dictated by what's available so don't want to limit choices too much.
I spent a while on the VW site narrowing down the options and I'm now down to GT, Manual, Blue, probably 140PSes.
However I was struggling to find good info on pros/cons of Bluemotion, not helped as it seems to cover a range of features, not all of which are implemented in all models.
Start-Stop I understand. However I'm a little unclear about the regenerative braking thing - AFAICS it is included on the GT, but I couldn't find info on exactly how it works, in particular when it's recovered the energy, what does it do with it, and is it actually worthwhile.
As an electronics engineer I'm guessing it's probably mananging power flow between the alternator and battery - does it then use the alternator to boost power during acceleration? Does it use a bigger/seperate battery?
My usage is typically short (10-20 mile) motorway and heavy city traffic, and prefer tyre life, lower insurance and runing costs to turbo-nutter performance (no offence intended!) - is it worth limiting my search to the BlueMotion models?