Cupra Born tested - is it a good electric car?

Electric vehicles are smoother, quieter, quicker and - most important of all - a lot cheaper to run day-to-day.

Unfortunately, they are also heavier, much more expensive to buy and the UK's charging infrastructure leaves a lot to be desired, thanks to a lack of investment and Government overreach.

Maybe that's why EV sales have started to show signs of running out of juice.

Business purchases are holding up (new car registrations in April were up by one percentage point thanks mainly to fleet EV registrations) but private buyers are fighting shy. Fewer than one-in-six EVs were bought by motorists using their own money (or credit) in the previous six months.

No wonder the industry has quietly revised its EV sales predictions from 19.8 per cent to 18.5 per cent of all new car registrations.

I'm not your average EV buyer.

I drive too many miles.

EVs are at their best when tooling around town on short trips and charging at home overnight.

In those conditions, an electric vehicle costs pennies to run and you never have to suffer range anxiety (the sheer terror of watching as your battery's range depletes knowing you probably aren't going to make it home and you haven't a clue if the next public charging point is going to work).

The truth is that range anxiety is less of a problem now. Britain still doesn't have enough public charging points but there are many more than there used to be and most of them don't require an app on your phone to use. A quick swipe of your debit card should be enough.

So if, as I do, you drive almost 1,000 miles a week you learn to get over range anxiety pretty quickly.

When the Born came out a couple of years ago I got to try one.

I was impressed by the looks, the space and the pace - but the 200-ish mile range just wasn't enough to make the Cupra anything more than a second car in my user case. And nearly 30 grand for a second car was way too much.

'What is a Cupra anyway?'

You may well ask.

Well it isn't Chinese. A wave of Chinese manufacturers have sprung up in the past decade thanks to the PRC's generous subsidy regime (£231 billion since 2009, according to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies) but Cupra is a European manufacturer.

It used to be the sporting arm of SEAT, the Spanish arm of Volkswagen, but in recent years it has gone it alone as a standalone brand while its erstwhile parent has withered on the vine.

The Born is based on a Volkswagen platform that's shared with Skoda, VW, Audi and Ford; but whereas the ID4 has gone the full MPV route and Audi, Skoda and Ford's models are all dressed in SUV clothes, the Born looks rather... sporting.

It reminds me of the old SEAT Altea, a family holdall that also looked rather swanky from certain angles, updated for the second decade of the 21st Century.

You can still buy a Born with the original battery pack 58kWh which, in the real world, should be good for a couple of hundred miles.

But you can also have a 77kWh battery pack that boosts the range substantially. Cupra claims this model is good for 340 miles of range. My testing showed that you’ll be looking for a charger after about 300 miles.

But 300 miles is good enough for me to work with. It’s rare that I do more than 300 miles in one day and with the bigger battery I could go about my daily driving without any fear of being stranded.

Looks good from any angle (Image: PR)

The Born’s wind-cheating shape makes it very slippery and when you’re conserving battery power, ‘slippery’ is good.

I had the chance to test the Born back-to-back with the Audi E-TRON Q4 (essentially the same car beneath the metal). The Cupra gave me 4.5 miles per kilowatt hour if I was careful; the Audi couldn’t manage more than 4 miles per kilowatt hour - a noticeable difference.

Nor did I have to compromise on convenience. That 4.5 miles per kilowatt hour figure was achieved with the air conditioning going full blast, some night time driving and the in-car entertainment on.

There’s another reason for stretching to the larger battery if you can afford it.

Whereas the ‘standard’ Cupra can accept fast chargers up to 125kwh, the more potent version will happily use a 170kwh charger. So if you can find a fast charger to hook it up to, you should be topped up in less than 30 minutes.

At home, cabled to my domestic 7kwh domestic charger, the Cupra was ready to go after a night on the drive. If you’re planning on using a normal domestic plug socket, though, it will take a lot longer because the maximum draw on a 13amp plug is about 2.4kwh. If your home’s electrics are getting on a bit, I’d recommend a dedicated domestic wall box to avoid putting too much strain on your circuit.

The Cupra is a practical car to own in lots of other ways, too.

There’s lots of room for five inside and the 385-litre boot is plenty big enough for the usual clobber. The seats split/fold if you need to carry more.

The seating position is very comfortable - you sit higher than your average hatchback and have an excellent view of the road ahead - and the all-digital instruments are easy to read at a glance.

However, the Born is saddled with the current Volkswagen Group user interface which has been widely criticised. Too much is relegated to the touch screen and the remaining physical switchgear is too small. Shamefully, the heating controls are tiny and not backlit so adjusting the cabin temperature at night is a stab in the dark (literally). The touch-sensitive controls on the steering wheel are perverse - I found they needed several stabs with my digit to work when I wanted to change the radio’s volume, but also activated by mistake if I brushed my palm against them while turning the steering.

The interior is a curate's egg - good in parts (Image: PR)

The good news is that VW is aware of these problems and a fix is on the way… and how often do you fiddle with the heating controls anyway?

To drive, the Born feels quick and all of a piece. There’s little body roll, the suspension deals with potholes well and the electric motor deploys maximum torque whenever you want it for snappy acceleration. No need to wait for the engine to build revs any more.

So could I live with a Cupra Born?

Until now the electric car was, at best, a second car proposition for me and the cost of buying one meant it wasn’t even that.

But the Born has opened my eyes to new possibilities.

In day-to-day use I could definitely get on with the Cupra without any need to compromise. Indeed, the convenience of fuelling at home would make the Born more convenient than a fossil fuel car.

Could now be the time to make the jump to electric? I think it could.

TALE OF THE TAPE: Price: from £35,440 Acceleration 0-62 mph: 5.6 to 7.6 seconds Battery charge time: 6.25 to 7.5h at 220V Battery: 62.99-84 kWh 240-270 V lithium-ion Cargo volume: 385 L, 1,267 L with seat area Dimensions: 4,324 mm L x 1,809 mm W x 1,540 mm H 0-62 mph: 7.1 seconds Charge time: 7.5h (wallbox) Battery: 77 kWh 240-270 V li-ion CARGO VOLUME 385 litres/1,267 litres with seats folded WILL IT FIT IN YOUR GARAGE? Dimensions: 4,324 mm L x 1,809 mm W x 1,540 mm H