Cupra Born Owner Review - Cupra Born 58kWh

Cupra Born Pros and Cons

Pros:

Great looks for an EV. More out there design than the standard boring designs a lot of manufacturers are going for.
Interior - materials feel nice, look premium & is laid out good to make you feel comfortable when in that space.
The aurora blue paintwork - glorious colour with the copper accents. The blue changes colour in different light conditions & imo is worth the extra money.
Technology - comes with a good amount of tech as standard, heated steering wheel, reversing camera with 360 parking sensors, 13” infotainment unit with wireless Apple CarPlay & android auto.

Cons:

Software - The biggest issue here!
VW group EV software is to put it simply - horrendous.
I have owned the car for 9 months, still no OTA updates.
The app is a waste of time, had no useful features like locking vehicle, & is very flakey as to whether it actually works & shows up to date information about the car.
Charging speeds - yes I know this depends on soc of the battery & the temps etc. But cupra claim the born can do 130kw charging for the 58kWh models, yet I’ve only ever seen over 100kw at 2% soc in the middle of summer. Other than that averaged high 70kw but would prefer the higher speeds a lot more often.
Touch climate controls - pain, plain & simple. Slider bars for temp don’t illuminate, so when driving it’s a faff to change the temp etc.
Touch buttons on the steering wheel. Take some getting use to, & you always end up catching one you don’t want.
Cupra dealership support - within one week of having the car the dashboard lifted in the middle. A known issue on early models as an issue from build. It’s now 9 months later & the dealership has only just booked it in for the fix to be applied. They have no idea about the car itself, with blank faces or unknown answers to any issues you have with software etc. Dealers need to be more clued up on cars they’re selling.

Considered buying

Volkswagen ID.4

The Attractions:

Bigger estate like car,

VW build quality.

The Dealbreakers:

Too lumpy when driving compared to the Born.

Older iD software compared to the Cupra Born.

Standard tech low compared to the Born.

Owner Review

Cupra Born 58kWh

I was in the market for a phev or a Bev vehicle & had a phev on order, when I stumbled across the Cupra Born on auto trader.

I wasn’t aware they were released & on sale at that point as had not seen advertising for their release. I was aware they were coming but weren’t aware so soon.

E023575E F6FF 441F BB03 A3C0BF0E1901 — Some premium Ionity juice 🧃

I found the vehicle I purchased at my local Seat dealership, where it was a stock built car which had just been delivered.

Visited the dealer had a drive & purchased as compared to its VW cousin the iD3, the Born just looks so much better.

The interior is miles ahead of the VW counterparts, with more premium feeling materials & the bigger 13” infotainment screen. Along with this, the Born came with iD software 3.0 & had the new 12V fitted from factory, which brought with it more benefits such as it being ready for OTA updates.

8CE16676 E32E 4DDA A371 8BEAEA1AD944 — If I be still the Tesla’s won’t know I’m an imposter 👀

However, the software is still full of bugs, whether that be the constant pop up prompt for new user settings, to all driver profile settings like acc or interior lighting resetting. This is a known issue across all VW group EV’s, but there just seems no fix is in site. Newer Borns have arrived with iD 3.1 software with a few new features such as kw charging speeds being shown inside the car where mine only shows miles per hour charging speed. But they still have the constant glitches with software & the app deciding as & when it wants to work.

The overall driver experience is good, the Born feels a lot more sportier than it’s VW cousins, & rides well.

I have done plenty of long journeys & baring not receiving the full quoted charging speeds at DC chargers, I’ve never had an issue DC charging & in the middle of summer I got 298 miles of range on a journey arriving with 2% left at the charger. That’s against the quoted range of 260 miles.

I feel once VW group sort the shambles of the software that runs their EV range, the Cupra Born will be a quality little EV.

Fun, sporty, can be thrown around on country lanes & is cheap to run.

Just please sort the software out VW!

C7C0F5BD A91C 4430 AEFE 5EACBE4BA21B — MEB cousins.

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Long-term average consumption

Long-term average consumption: 3.2 mi/kWh

See Tech Specs - Cupra Born

Cupra Born Photos

Cupra Born - Image 1 from the photo gallery

Cupra Born - Image 2 from the photo gallery

Cupra Born - Image 3 from the photo gallery

Cupra Born - Image 4 from the photo gallery

Cupra Born - Image 5 from the photo gallery

Cupra Born - Image 6 from the photo gallery

Cupra Born - Image 7 from the photo gallery

Discussion

David NO

2023-01-20 07:37:40 UTC

Nice photos :)

Beautiful car, definitely nicer than the ID.3. Weak software and slow charging is really a drawback. Nice photos :)