The new Peugeot E-3008 — an EV that rivals the Tesla Model Y and VW I.D.5. And the history of the Volkswagen Golf — one of the world's most successful cars that's captured hearts around the world for 50 years in a row.
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00:00This is the sound of a car crashing into a road.
00:08This is the sound of a car crashing into a road.
00:20This is the new Peugeot E3008, a purely electric SUV coupe and it is by no means the first
00:39car of this type on the market, so we have to compare it to its rivals.
00:44Welcome to RAV.
00:50There are different versions for the E3008.
00:53The first one that we are testing right now is a 210 horsepower, 157 kilowatt electric
01:00engine with 527 kilometers of range.
01:04The same range is true for the all-wheel drive version that has 320 horsepower, 240 kilowatts
01:13of power, and then, of course, there is the long-range version which has 230 horsepower,
01:19170 kilowatts, and up to 700 kilometers of range.
01:26Now, if you compare those driving numbers to, for example, Tesla Model Y or VW's ID.5
01:38Pro Performance, they are all quite similar.
01:42You have around 530 kilometers of range, you have a price of around 50,000 euros.
01:49The only thing is the Tesla is way more powerful, so it's, of course, faster and it can go up
01:55to 217 kilometers an hour while the Peugeot is kept at 170 kilometers an hour and the
02:03VW at even 160.
02:06To be fair, though, the difference in price is around 4,000 euros more for the Tesla that
02:12you have to pay for the additional power.
02:20The general driving impression in the Peugeot E3008 is quite good.
02:26It is very well insulated.
02:28You don't have a lot of wind noises in the interior which gives you a pleasant ride comfort.
02:33If you compare that to Tesla, it is a little better, I would say, but on the same level
02:38about as VW's ID5.
02:47The suspension is nothing special.
02:49It does exactly what you would expect from an SUV.
02:52It is rather soft, so you have the car rolling a little bit into curves but nothing too wild,
03:00so it's absolutely okay.
03:08The E3008 is the first car to be based on the new STLA medium platform from the Stellantis Group.
03:18Not only does the platform provide up to 700 kilometers of pure electric range, due to
03:24its scalable architecture, it can also be used for different body types and sizes of car.
03:30With a length of 4.54 meters and a width of 1.89 meters, the E3008 slots in at the
03:41lower end of the all-electric SUV coupes in this class.
03:46The interior of the Peugeot E3008 looks really good.
03:51High quality, nice materials and I always like the steering wheel of all Peugeot models
03:56since it's simply so small.
03:59Nicely to operate, gives you a good feeling.
04:03That part in the middle is not exactly what I would prefer, but it's still okay.
04:09I've seen worse.
04:10What I don't like is that high-gloss black here.
04:13It's not touch-operated, that's good, so you can't use them on accident because you have
04:17to actually press them, but you have quite a lot of high-gloss black here in the center
04:22console in the middle, but then you have that beautiful 21-inch widescreen display, which
04:29has all the information that you need, touch-operated.
04:32So infotainment system and instrument cluster in one big screen.
04:36That is not standard for the entry-level version, the Allure one.
04:41It is two 10-inch displays, but they are also connected with some sort of high-gloss black,
04:47so it looks similar.
04:53The thing I also really like is that display right here, where you can place shortcuts.
05:00So you simply keep that pressed, then it will highlight, and then you can choose on the
05:05screen here in the center whatever function you would like to place it right down there.
05:11As you can see right here, we have illumination.
05:14You can choose from a few colors.
05:16We'll show you a picture of that during the night, then you can see it better.
05:20I think it looks really good, but it can be a little bit distracting because you have
05:25reflections of that in the window.
05:27It's not that bright, so it's okay, but if you see it, then for a few minutes you can't
05:33unsee it.
05:34The E3008 can be charged with speeds of up to 160 kilowatts at a DC charger.
05:40A half hour of fast charging results in upwards of 250 kilometers of range.
05:45The thing that is not so good with the E3008 is the visibility to the rear, but that is
05:51not only a Peugeot problem.
05:53It is for all SUV coupes, simply by the way they are built at the rear.
06:05What is quite nice with the E3008 is that it has pedals behind the steering wheel, where
06:10you can choose the level of recuperation.
06:13Three different levels are possible, and with the highest level you can basically use
06:17it for one-pedal drive because the braking is quite strong.
06:21The only thing is, if you actually want to stop completely, then you have to apply the
06:25brakes at the end because the car will not stop on its own, unlike, for example, Volvo's
06:30EX30 or Polestar 2 or other cars that have that function.
06:35I don't know why not all manufacturers do this because it is basically real one-pedal
06:41drive, but, okay, there are also enough manufacturers that don't have it where you need to apply
06:48the brakes at the end.
06:56In markets that do have a few months a year that are rather cold, the heat pump in the
07:02car comes as standard, and that is a very good thing because you will save quite a lot
07:09of energy.
07:10If you compare that in the French market, for example, you have a water heater as standard
07:16that will use up to 7.5 kilowatts of energy to heat up the water.
07:23Prices for the E3008 begin at just over 48,000 euros for the entry-level model.
07:29To sum up my E3008 experience, it is a very solid car that, of course, has its price,
07:44but if you compare it to others in that segment, it is neither cheap nor very expensive, so
07:52it fits into that segment quite well.
07:56In the end, it's always a choice what you like in terms of design, be it on the interior
08:04or on the exterior.
08:06And I have to say the E3008 looks way better than, for example, an ID.5 or a Tesla.
08:15On the plus side, the E3008 is quite the looker inside and out, and the platform has flexibility
08:22in terms of body styles, which make the downsides, like poor rear visibility and compromised
08:29boot space, seem minor.
08:39The VW Golf, one of the most successful cars in the world, extraordinarily ordinary.
08:47But what's so special about it?
08:50Nothing.
08:51There is nothing exceptional, but everything fits.
08:57An iconic German car that's remained true to itself for 50 years.
09:03Spectacularly unspectacular.
09:08A Golf in its various generations was always recognizable as a Golf.
09:13You knew what you had.
09:14Come on, everybody!
09:16Give it another try!
09:18I'm sure you know!
09:21The Golf, the most successful German car of all time, appeals to young and old alike.
09:27It's found more than 35 million buyers worldwide, across all social classes.
09:34Let's spin it around!
09:37The senior doctor drove to the clinic in a Golf, the letter carrier drove one to work
09:41in the morning and then delivered his letters in another Golf.
09:44No matter your social class or your job, it's just a normal car.
09:53The Golf has conquered the whole world, from Brazil to South Africa.
09:57In many places, it's become part of the national culture and survived political upheaval.
10:04During apartheid, it was inaccessible to a lot of the oppressed.
10:08But then, after, we got our freedom. It was accessible to anyone.
10:13Volkswagen means a lot to Brazilian culture, especially the Golf models that we have here.
10:22And what's next for the Golf?
10:24There's heated, divisive debate about that on its 50th birthday.
10:30The challenge now is to continue this success story.
10:33You don't have to revolutionize everything if you think what's there isn't that bad.
10:39The Golf is, in a way, a symbol of the tragedy actually happening in the automotive industry.
10:48People still love the shape and the size of the Golf.
10:51Whoever designed the Golf, yeah, they did a good job.
10:55It was a revolutionary car design.
10:57And this revolutionary star designer comes from Italy.
11:01With Southern European flair, Giorgetto Giugiaro broke all conventions in the early 1970s
11:08to create a sensible, compact car.
11:16Its form, architecture, and technical and functional framework
11:22are like the harmony of a hit song.
11:27They're well-matched notes that create a harmony when you put them together.
11:37Giugiaro, who was voted designer of the century for creating unique and legendary vehicles
11:42for a wide variety of carmakers, was commissioned by Volkswagen to design the Golf.
11:48And he made it radically different from the perennial bestseller.
11:52Angular instead of round, front instead of rear-wheel drive, water-cooled instead of air-cooled.
11:59The Golf was smaller than the Beetle on the outside, but much roomier on the inside.
12:07The key feature of the Golf, I'll show you now, is that it's very compact.
12:14It's the sloping A-pillar and the sloping hood, while the beltline is lower.
12:26They are the facets of these notes, like those used to compose music.
12:34And they surprise those who look at them.
12:37And they surprise those who look at it with a harmony that's not perceived with the conscious mind.
12:45People just feel it.
12:49And people immediately felt the benefits of the car.
12:55VW soon launched the Golf GTI for drivers who liked it sporty.
12:59Since then, the Golf has consistently been the best-selling car.
13:04Since then, the Golf has consistently been the best-selling car in Germany,
13:08frequently in Europe and in some years even worldwide.
13:16Yes, I believe that the Golf actually managed to bend the zeitgeist of the industry into sheet metal.
13:22A proven technology that was very solid, that you could rely on.
13:28The Golf is now in its eighth generation, a car that changed the industry
13:34and even established a new vehicle category, the Golf-Class.
13:40At its core, the Golf has not really changed in 50 years.
13:50They have actually managed to change the Golf very gradually, slowly, in an evolutionary way.
13:57So that the new generation is very reminiscent of the old one.
14:05Customers have not been scared off by a completely new design.
14:13That's why there is a very strong customer loyalty to this car, because you knew what you had.
14:19The best overview of the car's development can be found
14:23in the world's largest private golf collection in the Austrian town of Stockerau.
14:31Josef Juser has brought together 114 Golfs,
14:35ranging from the most unusual with sliding doors to the fastest tuned GTI models.
14:43It's the golf fan's life's work.
14:49The Golf, because it was the first vehicle where everything really was just right.
14:55I used to drive all brands, almost all brands, when I was young.
14:59The Golf really was the car you sat in and everything was just right.
15:03The perfect car, as if it had been built for me.
15:09Many golf fans formed clubs to cultivate their passion.
15:14Only owners of the first model series from the 1970s gather at the meetings of one such group,
15:20called Original Golf One.
15:24But people from all walks of life come together here.
15:30The senior doctor drove to the clinic in a Golf,
15:34the letter carrier drove one to work in the morning and delivered his letters in another Golf.
15:38And the secretary in the factory drove a Golf.
15:42The Golf is a private car.
15:44It's a classless car, understated, reliable, practical.
15:48In essence, it offers everything you still need to get from A to B today.
15:54There are even some Golf One owners who bought their cars in the former East Germany.
15:58In 1978, Volkswagen delivered 10,000 Golfs there in exchange for sheet metal, heating oil and tires.
16:06It wasn't easy for people there to get their hands on a Golf.
16:10Reinhard Martinez got lucky because he'd registered with the authorities for an East German car long before.
16:16And so he was able to get a West German car that he could work on in his garden.
16:24At the time I worked for Interflug as a test engineer.
16:28But I wasn't a comrade, so I approached it optimistically.
16:32I thought, you have to get your hands on this car.
16:37It's a Lada I had registered for 12 years earlier in order to get it.
16:43Golfs were all the rage, not only in East Germany, but also in communist Yugoslavia.
16:49The foundations for the Golf enthusiasm in the Balkans were laid back in the 1970s and remain in place today.
16:57Back then, Volkswagen produced the first Golf models made in Sarajevo, today the Bosnian capital, as part of a joint venture.
17:07The dream of every average Yugoslavian was to own a Golf.
17:13Of course, you had to wait for a Golf, if you had the money for it.
17:17The wait was up to six months.
17:21I was able to save some money so that I could make my dream come true.
17:27It was a big deal for me as a young man.
17:31My generation will get what I'm talking about.
17:37Volkswagen's production facilities were largely destroyed in the Bosnian war between 1992 and 1995.
17:43Golf production was discontinued.
17:47But people's enthusiasm for the German car has survived.
17:53It's not anymore just a car. It's emotion.
17:57Emotion that Bosnian people and others hold in their hearts.
18:05Emotions about wealthy years before war, about survival during the war.
18:11And after war, that was an opportunity for the people to feel themselves again like normal people, that we are again in that condition like before.
18:23In South Africa, too, the Golf has survived a change in political systems and is now part of the country's culture.
18:32As a witness to history, it joined the long journey of the black population from the oppression of apartheid to the present day.
18:42During apartheid, it wasn't accessible to a lot of the oppressed.
18:46Maybe it was still expensive to those ones who were oppressed.
18:50But then, after we got our freedom, I think it became accessible to almost everyone.
18:58A very special Golf model was even built in South Africa.
19:02Because the Golf 2, which replaced the one in 1984, was too complex and expensive for South Africa,
19:08the Golf 1 simply continued to be built there in a slightly modified form, under the name City Golf.
19:18This is the car.
19:20My 2007 City Golf. It was a base model.
19:24And that's how it looks from inside.
19:27I can go outside and show you the outside as well.
19:31From the MK1 to the City Golf, this is how you differentiate them.
19:35This line here.
19:37So that's how you differentiate.
19:39The old MK1 doesn't have that line, but the City Golfs have that line.
19:45When production of the City Golf was finally discontinued in 2009,
19:49the whole country bid farewell to their favourite car with emotional outpourings.
19:59I think it will never die.
20:01In South Africa, it will never die.
20:03Because there's people who look after them.
20:05It will live forever.
20:07I'm going to save one for my son.
20:09He's still two years old.
20:12He'll find it maybe when he's 18 or 21.
20:16If he's interested, he'll also have his own.
20:18But if he's not interested, I'll keep it for myself.
20:26The Brazilians got a specially built model, the VW Gol,
20:30one of the country's most popular cars between 1980 and 2022.
20:34Although it had Audi 80 and VW Passat DNA,
20:38it came with a VW Golf.
20:40Volkswagen means a lot to Brazilian culture,
20:44especially for the Gol models that we have here.
20:49They created Gol to be a cheaper car for families,
20:53for more simpler people, which is the base of Brazil, you know?
21:00And even in France, people take their hats off to the Golf.
21:05And even in France, people take their hats off to the Golf.
21:09A special exhibition at the Retromobile Classic Car Show in Paris
21:13commemorates the Golf's history.
21:15Probably the only foreign car that has ever managed
21:18to seriously compete with the French local favourites.
21:23A car from abroad that left its mark on the French.
21:26You were suddenly driving a car that was incredibly young.
21:29The Citroën 2CV, for example, was a comfortable French car,
21:33but none of our cars had that dynamism.
21:45A Golf really is more than just a car.
21:49Golf stands for a way of life, almost a profession of faith.
21:59You live with it, identify with it.
22:02So in a way, the expression generation Golf makes sense.
22:08After 50 long years, the days of the Golf looked like they were numbered,
22:12as Volkswagen prepares for a new age of mobility.
22:15Electromobility, with the development of the ID model series.
22:19But don't count the Golf out just yet.
22:27There has now been a change in product strategy at Volkswagen.
22:30The ID.3, which is positioned in the same vehicle class as the Golf,
22:33was unable to build on the Golf's success.
22:37And now Volkswagen is going the other way
22:39and taking these well-known performance characteristics of the Golf
22:43and transforming them into electric mobility.
22:49And the aim now is to build on its iconic history
22:52and continue this success story with an electric car.
23:00And this is what it could look like, the Golf 9 with electric drive,
23:04which will be launched at the earliest in 2026.
23:09The Golf is in a way a symbol of the tragedy
23:13actually happening in the automotive industry.
23:16We are changing over to new engines, namely the electric engines.
23:21They are completely different parameters
23:23and still the car maintains exactly the same shape as before.
23:29So when Beetle became Golf, changing the engine, it changed also the shape.
23:36Now 50 years after the first Golf, I believe we have to understand
23:40that the way we use cars has thoroughly changed.
23:44And so it's quite a tragedy that VW says we'll keep the Golf forever.
23:53We buy the Golf because of the meaning of it.
23:56In a new world, which is the one we are approaching, there should be new meanings.
24:02Could it be time for Giorgetto Giugiaro to radically redesign VW's best-selling model?
24:08Doesn't VW need a little revolution every 50 years?
24:12Unlikely. The Italian now only works for Chinese carmakers.
24:16He ended his collaboration with Volkswagen in 2015.
24:21In design, it's not democratic, you understand?
24:26I didn't have the freedom to propose the things I wanted to do
24:30when I agreed to join that large corporate group.
24:36They don't have any courage, because they're the men in charge
24:40and they don't want to put their positions of power at risk.
24:44They don't take risks, they do things more or less the same as ever
24:49in order to avoid risks, because they don't have any vision.
25:00But vision is what led Giorgetto Giugiaro to create his milestones in automotive design.
25:10I have lived and built a career out of my absolute freedom,
25:15because when I made my first cars, I had incredible freedom.
25:25The VW Golf, a symbol of freedom and creativity in car design.
25:30The car for everyone, which people, old and young, all over the world have embraced.
25:39A car that has become the flagship of the German automotive industry.
25:45Its past is glorious, but opinions are split on what lies ahead for it.