To be absolutely clear, I’m not a fan of having governments, or anyone else for that matter, forcing electric vehicles down our throats. But I do think that they have a role to play in everyday life going forward and I like having a choice.
Innovation is great, and the advances made in EVs over the last decade or so are amazing. From literally milk floats and golf carts 20 years ago, to some pretty cool cars available on the market today proves that the electrification of transport has come a long way in a short time. But it’s not the answer for everybody, and the time will show that other technologies are also a part of the future, including ever more efficient internal combustion engines.
Having said that, I’m now on my second EV purely because I choose to own one and it happens to suit my life these days. It won’t suit everyone, but this latest one does exceed my expectations by some margin.
The first EV I bought was a Mini-e. Whilst the ride and handling were great, the range and the size were both sub optimal for me. The real time range was well under 200km and it’s really a two-seater unless you’re carrying small kids. Given that, unlike some of my peers, I’ve avoided the whole ‘mark two family’ thing plus my grandchild lives in the UK, the Mini’s rear seats were wasted on me.
So, six months or so ago I replaced it with a Cupra Born. That, along with Seat, is one of the two Spanish brands under the Volkswagen umbrella. Effectively, the Born is really a rather nicer version of the VW ID3 EV that isn’t sold in Australia. It’s Golf+ size and, given that I’ve always been a Golf fan (I still have one of the last three-door GTIs sold here), it’s closer to my ideal sized town car than the Mini.
The Born competes head-to-head with both the Polestar 2 and the Tesla Model 3. It’s better than both and deserves to sell here in higher numbers than it does. I’ll explain why.
The first ‘win’ for me is that it’s not built in China, unlike the Polestars and the Model 3s that are sold here. Forgive me, but as I’ve written about before, I simply don’t understand why we allow unfettered access to vehicles from China when we don’t enjoy the same freedom of access to the Chinese market for all the agricultural goods that Australia produces. Yes, it’s improved in recent weeks, but we appear to be constantly treading on eggshells. That’s without considering the security implications of accessible computers in every vehicle imported from there, and that’s a big enough issue for the US government to be all over it.
The next plus for the Born is the build quality. It feels solid from the minute you open the door and that feeling continues through the process of operating the various buttons etc. Mind you, those haptic controls on the steering wheel and the bottom of the info screen are every bit as irritating as they are on the Mk8 Golf – they need to go. But the feeling of solidity comes through during the driving experience, even on the dire Brisbane urban roads, as the ride is great and it never rattles or creaks. It’s a step up from both the Polestar and the Tesla in these areas.
The best asset for me though, is the superb efficiency that gives it an excellent range. It’s streets ahead of the Polestar in particular on this measure. I drive everywhere in the ‘performance’ mode and never consider range in the way I drive, but I can get 600+ km every time on a ‘tankful’ if I desire. That’s with air-con. Living in south east coastal Queensland is never going to test the cold weather battery performance of course, and that could be an issue down south, as it is with every EV.
Compare that range with the real-world range that I’ve achieved each time I’ve rented a Polestar 2 from Hertz. With a similar sized battery, the actual achievable range, in my experience, of the Polestar comes in at under 400km in normal use. And that’s not helped by Hertz only charging their cars to 90 per cent on pick up.
Chatting with several Uber drivers who use Model 3s, they see 400km or so as the practical range of their steeds. I’ve never driven one far enough in one go to properly assess range first hand, probably because I can’t stand the white interiors of those that I’ve been given the key to. God only knows what those seats look like after 50,000km, but when they’re new they remind me of the decor of a cheap Vegas bar.
There’s one area though, that the Born is deficient in when compared to the other two. That’s the whole infotainment area. The Polestar, in particular, is streets ahead of the Born in the usability of it’s systems especially with a much larger screen display making it easier to see everything. The Born is over reliant on Apple CarPlay to achieve any real degree of functionality, which is irritating especially given that the phone has to be physically plugged in rather than relying on Bluetooth. That seems pretty antiquated in this day and age, but it’s a product of a hopeless IT department within the VW Group for so many years.
A Born fitted with the Polestar infotainment system would be near-perfect.
By the way, I only ever charge the Born using the 10amp source at home. That’s slow, but it doesn’t bother me and I suspect that it definitely helps with battery capacity and life. And it costs three-tenths of bugger all. A major plus economically and it underlines the inevitable truth that, currently, EVs really only work for the majority of folk when they can be charged exclusively at home, something that simply isn’t possible for everyone.
I’m lucky enough to have more than one vehicle and, if I had to rely on only one, then I wouldn’t have an EV as I still love internal combustion engines. But for the vast majority of my motoring, the Born is ideal. So far, it’s been absolutely reliable and faultless whilst also making trips up and down the coast practical, cheap and easy. And when I go further afield I use Virgin.
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