One of the most important models that will debut at the upcoming Paris Auto Show is the seventh-generation VW Golf, which was unveiled in Berlin last Tuesday, September 4.

Even though the brand-new Golf’s basic version posts an official average fuel consumption of 4.9 lt/100 km (48 mpg US), Greenpeace staged a protest outside the New National Gallery, where the event was taking place.

The environmentalist organization is obviously displeased with VW, having already targeted the German group and its C-segment model twice. “The Golf is the car that distinguishes the segment it’s in for the next 10 years worldwide and all carmakers benchmark themselves against it”, Greenpeace’s German transportation expert Wolfgang Lohbeck told Reuters.

Lohbeck said that VW has the technology to produce a version with a 3.0 lt/100 km (78.4 mpg US) average consumption, yet it doesn’t.

“It’s lame, it’s disappointing”, he said, dismissing next year’s zero-emissions electric version of the Golf because “it won’t comprise the bulk of the volumes – what’s important is the basic petrol version.”

VW CEO Martin Winterkorn said that a “small band” of protestors (reportedly numbered around 50 people) held the picketing. He also dismissed Greenpeace’s accusations, stressing that the new Golf is “the right answer for rising fuel prices” thanks to versions like the Blue Motion diesel, which has an average fuel consumption of just 3.2 lt/100 km (73.5 mpg US).

By Andrew Tsaousis

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