2015 Volkswagen Golf: Green Car Reports' Best Car To Buy 2015 | Imports by Day

The 2015 Volkswagen Golf range--that our editors chose as the winner this year. It's also the car our readers' poll selected as well.

The 2015 Golf range is our recommendation as Green Car Reports' Best Car To Buy (and the first European brand winner since the award started five years ago).

The compact five-door Golf, now in its seventh generation, is both lighter and more spacious inside.

It It comes with expanded features and electronic safety systems, while retaining the Golf's fun-to-drive quotient.

It's the wide selection of powertrains that gives the Golf the gold this year.

From a pair of turbocharged gasoline engines to an all-new TDI turbodiesel (also found in the A3, but at a higher Audi sticker price), the combustion-engined Golfs get better fuel-efficiency ratings than the outgoing models

Then there's the Volkswagen e-Golf, VW's first-ever all-electric car and zero-emission vehicle.

So far, we haven't spent long enough in the e-Golf to test its real-world range or efficiency.

But for the diesel, the Golf TDI is rated at 36 mpg combined--and like many diesels, it overachieved on its EPA rating, giving us a genuine 48 mpg in a week of real-world use.

That's largely equivalent to real-world Toyota Prius results, with the added bonus of driving pleasure that the Prius just can't provide.

Whichever Golf you choose, you'll get fuel efficiency and fun in equal measure--and that applies as well to the Volkswagen e-Golf.

It's simply the most "normal" electric car we've ever driven.