Quick Spin: 2013 Volkswagen Jetta Hybrid Car News and Review

The world doesn’t need some other automaker claiming to have cracked the code for a fun-to-drive hybrid. The concept hasn’t worked particularly well in whatever application. Just inquire Lexus. And Honda. Twice.

Granted, we don’t know how Volkswagen plans to pitch the 2013 Jetta Hybrid when it goes on sale this fall. We didn’t get a two-hour long marketing presentation and associated PowerPoint. Instead, we snagged the keys while an executive-level engineer droned on around next-gen modular EGR systems and EU4-compliant oxidation catalytic converters.

We needed an escape and the Jetta Hybrid was it.

So maybe it was the sub-zero temps outside the VW pavilion in Wolfsburg, Germany or the opportunity to do something – anything – to combat the effects of three hours of sleep in 36 hours. But what we found during our all-too-brief drive of the Jetta Hybrid wasn’t a cynical engineering-meets-marketing stop-gap, but instead the first compelling option to the Toyota Prius.