Cupra Tavascan V1 long-term test: no home charging, no problem

Verdict

The lack of home charging isn’t as big an issue as I expected, and overall the Tavascan is proving to be a great car to run. I think it looks great and drives really nicely, and the range is only getting better as the weather warms up.

• Mileage: 2,845
• Efficiency: 3.5mi/kWh

As my colleague Tom has found with Vauxhall Grandland Electric, if you don’t have home charging, running an electric car is more expensive than it could be. This situation isn’t helped by the fact that the pricing and speed of connections across the various chargepoint providers is a minefield in itself. It’s something that new EV converts need to get their heads around.

I tend to try charging on cheaper slower chargers if I’m out for a few hours, or use the fast chargers at various supermarkets that, although expensive, at least offer the benefit of convenience.

However, I travel fairly regularly up from Dorset to London, and my husband received an email from Instavolt offering a cheaper price via the app for its brand-new superhub near Winchester, Hants.

It’s the UK’s largest rapid-charging hub, with 44 chargers all run on renewable energy. Plus it was just a four-minute diversion from my normal motorway route, so I felt I really should give it a go.

The site itself is impressive, featuring a family-friendly children’s playground and dog walking area along with a Starbucks.

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The on-site solar farm also provides visible evidence of Instavolt’s green energy claims. I had downloaded the app in advance to take advantage of the reduced rate of 65 pence per kWh, down from the usual rate of 87p/kWh. But the experience wasn’t completely glitch-free, because the first charger we tried didn’t work, causing a moment of concern because I was down to just 87 miles of range. Fortunately, it was just a rogue fault, and the next charger along connected straight away.

The battery reached 84 per cent in a mere 33 minutes, highlighting the Tavascan’s impressive charging speed. It added 200 miles at a cost of £34.84. The range is also improving now we have some warmer weather, with a previous full charge giving me a reading of more than 300 miles. I’m learning to trust the predicted range figures too, because they’ve been fairly accurate so far. Overall efficiency has also crept up to 3.5 mi/kWh.

I mentioned the brakes in my first report, and while I have adapted to them, they are still unnerving at times. But the paddles mounted on the steering wheel are useful to adjust the level of regenerative braking.

As in a lot of modern cars, there is a distinct lack of physical buttons, but the temperature and volume controls at the bottom of the 15-inch screen just require a swipe to operate; these seem quite divisive but I find them easy to use. The steering wheel-mounted volume controls are more troublesome; my husband in particular often finds himself catching them by mistake while driving.

One other relatively common feature that has proven a hit is the wireless smartphone charging pad, which is positioned out of the way on the lower level of the swooping Y-shaped centre console. It’s the first one I’ve had in a test car that works consistently.

Cupra Tavascan V1: second fleetwatch

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The Cupra Tavascan’s puddle lights helped to find some lost keys

As picture editor of Auto Express, I’ve seen many close-up photos of puddle lights; while they look impressive, I I've never thought they were particularly useful. But those on our long-term Cupra Tavascan genuinely are. My parking spot at home is right in a corner by a big hedge, and when I recently dropped my keys, the large, bright Cupra logos saved me from having to scrabble around on my knees.

Cupra Tavascan V1: first fleetwatch

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The Cupra Tavascan swallows car seats with ease thanks to plenty of rear seat space

I took my granddaughter out in the Cupra Tavascan for the first time recently, but I don’t have my own child car seat, so I had to borrow one from her parents.

They have the BeSafe Beyond 360, which is super-versatile because it is suitable for children from six months to six years old; it can also be used both forward and rear facing, and with or without the base. I was worried it would be difficult to fit, but luckily it was a breeze.

The Cupra’s rear seats are spacious, so I had no need to move the front seat forward, even when I was using the base, which slipped into the Isofix fittings easily. Because I was only doing short journeys, I chose to fit it forward-facing so we could keep an eye on the occupant. Strapping her in was fairly straightforward and the padding was really supportive – which is just as well, because she ended up falling asleep within five minutes.

Cupra Tavascan V1: first report

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Sporty Spanish electric SUV joins the Auto Express fleet – what do we make of it so far?

• Mileage: 1,786
• Efficiency: 3.3 miles/kWh

The Tavascan is Cupra’s second fully electric vehicle, but also its first electric SUV. Rather than this leading to a dumbing down of the brand’s sporty styling, the car’s performance-led design has moved it further away from its siblings in the VW Group.

Underneath, it may share its MEB platform, batteries and motors with the Audi Q4 Sportback e-tron, VW ID.5 and Skoda Enyaq Coupé, among many others, but the bold styling inside and out is what makes it really stand out from plainer-looking SUVs.

I think the exterior looks great. The front has an aggressive appearance, and the grille is large, but the addition of the trademark Cupra copper details and indents within the black panel add interest. The raised central panel   
on the bonnet also adds to the sporty feel, and although the Cupra logo on the nose is a little large in my opinion, it looks good when it’s lit up. The profile continues the theme with sharp creases and a swooping coupé roofline. This ends at the main feature of the aerodynamically efficient rear: an LED light bar that stretches across the back of the car and incorporates another illuminated logo.

There’s a lot of Cupra branding all over the exterior, but it took a while to notice the only mention of Tavascan, which is located discreetly within the rear lights.

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The bold styling themes continue inside and it feels rather upmarket, even though there is a lot of plastic around. The textured finishes and flashes of copper elevate the overall look, but personally I find the wider bronze band across the dash, with ridged black plastic above, a step too far.  It’s practical, though – the floating centre console doesn’t intrude too much on interior space, the cup-holders are narrow but take my travel coffee cup perfectly, and the storage bin behind them is large.

The Tavascan comes in four trim levels, and our car is the entry-level V1 variant. It still comes with a decent amount of standard kit, though, including a heated steering wheel, four USB points, a powered boot lid with a ‘virtual pedal’, wireless full-link smartphone integration and wireless charging. There is also a rear-view camera, along with intelligent parking assist, plus it has the same safety features as the higher trim levels.

The paint on our Cupra is the standard colour of Atacama Desert. It’s metallic but comes at no extra cost, and I think it’s a more interesting choice than the grey or white silver options, both of which bring an additional charge. In fact, the only extra on our car is the £1,335 Winter Pack, which adds a heat-insulating windscreen, a heat pump and heated front seats, something I’ve already been very happy about choosing as a result of the recent cold snap.

We haven’t had the car long, so we’ll certainly have more to say in the coming months about the driving experience and how the range stacks up in winter, but our initial impressions are mainly positive.

It’s very comfortable on the road, quiet on the motorway and it coped well on the bumpy, twisty New Forest surfaces during a recent trip over there. The quoted range for our rear-wheel-drive model is 352 miles. When we fully charged it after starring in a road test (you can read about how it stacks up against the Ford Capri, it showed 283 miles, but we had some awful weather that day, so it may well improve over time.

One thing we aren’t so sure about are the brakes, which are taking some getting used to. They respond quickly enough when you first press the pedal but seem to fade, which sometimes means you have to reapply pressure more urgently than feels comfortable to bring the car to a stop.

*Insurance quote from AA (0800 107 0680) for a 42-year-old in Banbury, Oxon, with three points.