After we spoke to Cupra’s design director Jorge Díez in regards to the Spanish model’s ambitions and future, characterful electrification was on the high of his precedence listing. This automotive, the Cupra Born, is successfully the model’s manifesto made actual.
(Picture credit score: CUPRA)
The Born is an electrical hatchback that’s sized to be on the mid-point in a fast-maturing market. Not fairly city-car compact, and definitely no match for the brawnier electrical SUVs, it has a broad vary of capabilities.
With a said vary of 215 miles for the fundamental v1 spec, it’s no long-distance cruiser, however it’s greater than comfy on the motorway and quick charging permits for all however essentially the most formidable distances to be coated with ease.
(Picture credit score: CUPRA)
Cupra Born EV: sensible round city
It additionally makes the Born an excellent machine round city, with a higher vary than vehicles just like the Mini Electrical, Peugeot e-208 and Honda e, which means charging is required approach much less usually.
In high v3 spec, the battery pack is boosted to 77kWh and the vary stretched to a powerful 264 miles. You additionally get the sort of extras normally discovered solely in way more costly machines, comparable to therapeutic massage seats and a heated steering wheel (an important for cold-weather driving whenever you’re attempting to preserve battery).
(Picture credit score: CUPRA)
Different extras offered within the optionally available Tech L pack embody wi-fi charging on your cellphone, keyless entry, and an clever park help perform. There’s additionally a nine-speaker audio system by Beats.
All in all, the Cupra Born provides a premium expertise in a comparatively small bundle, simply the factor to lure folks out of bigger vehicles.
(Picture credit score: CUPRA)
Simply sufficient eccentricity
Certainly one of Cupra’s said USPs is to make vehicles which are slightly bit extra unique than your run-of-the-mill middle-market product. The Born is constructed on Volkswagen’s MEB electrical platform (the Modularer E-Antriebs-Baukasten), a scalable system that underpins the corporate’s personal ID vary, the mid-size Audi This autumn e-tron and the superb Škoda Enyaq iV. By way of dimension and proportion, it matches up most carefully to the VW ID.3, however the place the Volkswagen is somewhat quotidian, the Born has little prospers of eccentricity.
(Picture credit score: CUPRA)
It boasts a face like a Gaudí gargoyle, and a badge that appears like an instrument from the Inquisition, whereas there are Calatrava-esque diversions into twisted geometry, notably on the grille, dashboard, and D-pillar.
Splashes of the corporate’s signature copper end carry the inside and exterior; our solely quibble is the touch-sensitive controls for quantity and heating (inherited from VW) which are fiendishly onerous to function persistently. Nonetheless, the Born units itself aside with out being overtly extrovert.
(Picture credit score: CUPRA)
Whereas world economics dictate that VW’s MEB-based vehicles should run the gamut of scale, we consider there’s an actual profit to downsizing. Main trade figures have advised us that advances in battery chemistry and manufacturing occur each month. Given this, VW’s latest resolution to push again the introduction of its second-generation EV platform till 2028 would appear to make sense. As electrification comes of age, right here’s hoping the modest vehicle makes a comeback, providing effectivity, practicality, and magnificence with out sacrifice.
Cupra Born, from £36,475, value as examined £43,280
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