6 minute read
Petrol Heads’ Corner Cupra Born
David O’Neill*
I have to make a confession at the beginning of this review, which is that I have always liked the Cupra. The brand is tremendous “bang for your buck”.
I was given the Cupra Born (which apparently is the Spanish word for born) by the local dealer, Ebbetts (actually – my son, he’s the Cupra brand manager) to take over to the beach and back.
The car is entirely electric. It’s really a hot hatch, albeit electric.
I have always thought that a lot of electric vehicles are not pretty. The designers seem to be trying to fill a gap where the radiator was, and they end up looking like guppies or similar. This car, however, is different. I think it looks terrific. I think that Cupra have got a very clever design team, and their cars are appealing. Clearly, they won’t be to everyone’s taste, but this one is a cracker.
The car is externally quite small, but very spacious inside. The boot is relatively small, but when you drop the seats, there is a ton of room and we were able to go over to the beach and back with a fair amount of stuff.
The car looked terrific in red. The copper accents were there, as they seem to be the hallmark of Cupra. For a small car it had enormous wheels. Being electric, you didn’t have the usual dials and what have you, because all you are really interested in is the speed and how much battery capacity you have got left. I confess, being a newbie to electric cars my eyes were glued to the battery indicator. We travelled the 2 ½ hour trip from Hamilton to Pauanui (via Paeroa, Waihi, Whangamata and Hikuai (and it used about 1/3 of its “tank”) very easily.
When we got to Pauanui, I was able to plug it into the wall with a normal three pin plug and it almost completely recharged overnight. I was impressed. I haven’t got a clue what that cost in electricity terms though.
What does the car look like?
The interior was very well done. No cheap plastics or anything like that inside the car. It was all high-quality plastic, metal or leather. The seats were fabric, but well made and quite sporty. Being sporty, they got a little uncomfortable over a period of time. The back seat passengers would have had plenty of room. We didn’t have any passengers, but you could tell that even with my seat pushed back to accommodate me, there was a ton of room for passengers.
The instrument panel consists of a digital read out screen with speed and battery charge. The control panel, which is the size of a large I-Pad, had all the other features, and everything is touch control.
Another feature which I found quite useful, was the “gear stick”. It was a rotary dial on the right hand side of the unit giving speed and battery capacity where there was the option of reverse, neutral, drive and “regenerative drive”.
This last aspect is something that has been taken from the Formula E racing series, where the car generates charge back into the battery from either coasting down a hill or braking. It’s another good example of what was previously the sole property of Formula 1/ Formula E racing which has now made its way into the mainstream car manufacturing world.
How did it go?
It’s a rear wheel drive vehicle. It’s no rocket ship, contrary to what everybody says about electric vehicles, but is quick enough. It is very quiet and apart from some road noise (not a lot), the car is lovely and easy to drive. It was easy to drive over to the beach, and the hills through Whangamata didn’t present a problem. The only criticism I would have of it, is the short wheelbase meant that it got quite bouncy on the Hauraki Plains swamp road. This may have been a setting issue, (I’m not sure), but you couldn’t go that quick over the swamp road because it bounced. However, on a normal road, it was tremendously smooth and easy to drive.
I can’t tell you the economy figures, because I don’t know enough about electric vehicles to say whether one car is more economical than the other. We drove there and back at a reasonably economical pace and it was fairly good, and used about a third of the tank.
Price
The car, as it is, with most goodies is $75,000. With the current rebate, that drops to $68,000. I thought it was well made and didn’t feel tinny. I have often wondered how some of the other new electric vehicles are going to be in a few years time. I don’t know and I can’t say, but my suspicion is that they are made of light grade material and it will be interesting to see how they fare down the road after a few years bashing around New Zealand roads.
By way of contrast, this car, will, in my opinion, be just as tight and squeak free in a few years time as it was brand new.
General
It had plenty of storage space in the cabin, with cubby holes all over the place. The air conditioning worked well and the stereo system was very good.
The verdict is – not a bad vehicle. Obviously, it is the way the world is going, and electric vehicles will be the majority soon with older petrol driven vehicles being phased out.
I rekcon it’s a good car. As I said before, I don’t know whether it is good value, but if it is like its cousins, the petrol driven versions, it will be good value for money.
Specs
The maximum power output for this car is 231 KW delivered between 5,300 – 7,000 RPM.
The maximum torque is 310 NM at anywhere between 0 – 5,000 RPM. That’s a heap of pull right from the get go.
It is a rear wheel drive car with a single speed auto, and the battery capacity is 77 KW/hour.
It is not light. With one person in it, it weighs 1.9 tons. That is heavy.
Performance
0 – 100 KM/H 7.0 seconds
Maximum speed: 160 KM/H
Range: around 548 KM and using one of the super fast chargers, it can re-charge in 30 minutes.
I wonder how these cars are going to go when the rebate comes off them. There is no doubt the government is going to do it, and they will probably also charge owners road user charges, which will mean they won’t be as popular.
I am not yet converted. I will probably have to be one of these days, but if you like electric vehicles, then this is worth a look.
Happy motoring.
