Stan Hall drives a CUPRA Born V3 77kWh 2022.
This is Stan’s first electric car, he’s owned the CUPRA Born less than a year and drives 15,000-20,000 miles annually. The current mileage of the car is between 10,000-20,000 miles and he achieves 270 miles from a full charge.
Why did you choose the CUPRA Born?
We chose the Born as we had driven and looked at a few other EVs (such as the ID.3 & IONIQ 5) and we thought the Born was by far the best-looking and was based on the same platform as the ID.3, which we enjoyed driving but didn’t like the interior or the styling.
Positives – List 3 or more reasons why you love this electric car
- Looks
- cabin feel
- practicality.
Negatives – List 3 or more things that you really don’t like about this electric car
- Buggy and laggy infotainment system
- non-memory electric seats
- ‘clangy’ doors.
Have you experienced any faults with the car? If so, what have they been?
Only software and app glitches, otherwise perfect.
What are the standout technological features of the car?
The HUD is great, particularly with the sat nav directions incorporated. I love the adaptive cruise control, & the seat massage function sounds like a gimmick but it’s great for my dodgy back on long trips.
Surprise us! Tell us something people wouldn’t readily know about this electric car
I never knew how good a heated steering wheel could be and the rear view camera has a washer nozzle to keep it clean.
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What electric car(s) are you interested in next and why?
Porsche Taycan if I can afford it but maybe not practical for us as we have a dog. Otherwise, a CUPRA Tavascan but I have to see one in the flesh first.
Home charging unit – outline both positive & negative elements
We have an Andersen A2, which we chose because it is very neat and has no cable showing. It generally works well but we are on our third unit now as the first two failed within a few months. Scheduled off-peak charging (Octopus Intelligent) works fine but the charging from the solar software is poor and we have stopped using that feature so we just plug our granny charger in on sunny days. Andersen (now EVIOS) really need to do something about this. We are fortunate to have a drive to park the car on but I wouldn’t have an EV without a home charger.
Electricity supplier & tariff – outline both positive & negative elements
Octopus Intelligent. Works OK but it’s a bit of a faff if you have storage batteries as you need to stop them discharging when smart charging is on, otherwise the batteries end up empty! Octopus need to sort this out somehow. 6 hours at cheap rate (currently 7.5p/kWh) is really good though! We were on Octopus Go until recently and Intelligent is better as we can get 40+kWh into the battery in one night now with the extra 2hrs.
What public charging networks would you recommend to others and why?
GRIDSERVE and IONITY are our preferences, mainly because they are high speed and in just the right places for our long trips to Scotland and the South West. Once in Scotland we like ChargePlace Scotland, particularly when they had lots of free charging points!
Insurer – outline both positive & negative elements
Costs have got very high this year, more than double what we paid when we bought the car. Now with Flow as we were quoted over £800 by our previous insurer, Carole Nash.
Please itemise where you’re saving money (or not) owning & running a CUPRA Born
We do 15,000 miles p/a in our Born, so an average of 290 miles per week. The vast majority of this is daily commuting. We are saving huge amounts in fuel as we have solar and cheap overnight rates. For example we ‘fill’ the car for about £6.50 and get 270 miles from that.
See other CUPRA Born Owner Reviews here
