00:05When it was launched in 2021, the Cupra Born was the manufacturer's first purely electric
00:10vehicle. Now it has gotten a facelift and everything that's new, we'll check it out
00:15right now. Welcome to REF. There are three different versions for the Cupra Born. The
00:27Born, which is the base version, Endurance and VZ the sportiest version. The power output
00:34ranges from 190 to 326 horsepower, 240 kilowatts for the VZ version that we're testing right now.
00:48That car makes the dash from 0 to 100 kilometers an hour in 5.6 seconds and has a top
00:54speed of 200
00:55kilometers an hour. By the way, the VZ is the only version that will go to 200 kilometers an hour.
01:02The other ones are capped at 160 kilometers an hour.
01:11The general driving impression in the newborn is good. The interior is quite silent.
01:19What you do feel though is that Cupra always gives their car a little more of a sporty touch.
01:26So very short bumps, you will feel them in that car because the suspension is a little stiffer than
01:33with most other cars in that segment. But that is by no means a bad thing. I really like it.
01:39I enjoy
01:39driving that way. And especially with the VZ version, which is quite sporty, not only with the acceleration,
01:47but also in curves. It really is a blast to drive.
01:55There are two different battery sizes for the newborn. 58 kilowatt hours, net capacity for the entry
02:03level version. And the other two have a capacity of 79 kilowatt hours. With that bigger battery,
02:09you will achieve around 630 kilometers of range. And with the smaller one 484 kilometers, according to WLTP.
02:21The charging speed for the bigger battery is up to 183 kilowatts. And that way,
02:26it will charge from 10 to 80 percent in 29 minutes. The interior of the Born is really good looking,
02:40very appealing, at least to me. I especially like the steering wheel. It's basically the same with
02:47every Cupra model. And what I especially like is the fact that they went back to physical buttons
02:53and turning knobs to adjust the main functions. And the touch operation that the predecessor had,
03:03it was simply not good. This is way better.
03:13You have a 12.9-inch infotainment display, Android-based. You can, of course, use Android Auto and
03:19Apple CarPlay. The usage of that is quite intuitive. You have everything where you would expect it.
03:28The only thing I'm not a fan of is the fact that the adjustment for the climate has to be
03:35done with
03:35the touch sliders down here. So it will give you an acoustic feedback. But if you don't look,
03:43you will not really know, am I now putting the temperature up or down? Because the sound is the
03:51same. Maybe if they had done different sounds for up and down, then you could use it without having
03:56to look at it. By the way, the touch operation is also true for the volume of the infotainment.
04:02Luckily, then you will hear whether you made it louder or less loud. And what's even more important,
04:08you have a turning knob at the steering wheel to adjust the sound. So this is only relevant for
04:14passengers.
04:21Like with most other Cupras, the car has bucket seats as standard, which gives a little bit
04:27credit to that sporty appeal of the brand. And if you drive the VZ version, that is definitely a good
04:33thing because that car is sporty. And what's even more important, they are made from more than 90%
04:39recycled materials, which is very good for the environment.
04:49The space in the back is absolutely decent. As you can tell, there is a little bit of legroom left,
04:55there is some headroom left, despite the fact that we have a panoramic glass roof in this car.
04:59The seats themselves are quite soft. I really like that. I can imagine driving in the back of this
05:07car for a few hundred kilometers without any major problems.
05:11Trunk capacity is 385 liters with the seats up, 1267 liters when they're folded down.
05:23The newborn features vehicle to load. That means if you stop your car,
05:29you can use the energy of the battery to charge. For example, a laptop, an e-bike, a drone, you
05:37name it.
05:37There is basically nothing this car can charge. You could even, in theory,
05:43take a coffee machine with you and use that with the car's electricity.
05:53What's also new for the Cupra Born is remote parking. So, in theory, you can place your car
05:59next to the parking spot and then get out of the car and do the rest of the parking with
06:05the
06:05smartphone app. That is quite practical, especially if you have parking spaces that are quite tight,
06:11where you would not be able to get all of the car without damaging the car next to you. So,
06:16that can be
06:17quite helpful.
06:23What I like about the newborn is that you have pedals behind the steering wheel where you can
06:28adjust the level of recuperation from zero to three. And furthermore, you have the possibility to put
06:34the car into B-drive mode. And with that, it will be possible to move it in one-pedal drive.
06:42That means
06:43no need for braking because the car will go up to a complete standstill if you stop accelerating.
06:53Since its market launch in 2021, the Cupra Born has been sold more than 213,000 times across the globe.
07:04And that is quite a good figure for a car that was basically completely new when it got onto the
07:10market.
07:14The engineers decided to give the Cupra Born a sporty sound, but they didn't try to
07:21recreate the combustion engine sound. Instead, they took inspiration from the Formula E.
07:27And if you put the car into Cupra drive mode, then it will sound a little something like this.
07:39Another nice feature the Born has is a head-up display. I'm always a fan of that. It will show
07:46your speed, the speed limit, but also the information for your current navigation.
07:57The facelift was a very good thing for the new Cupra Born. Not only does it look even better than
08:02the predecessor, which also looked quite good, but Cupra managed to improve a lot of things that were
08:09not as good in the previous generation. So all in all, you can say this car has way less flaws
08:16than the
08:16predecessor had. To sum it up, Cupra's newborn is a sporty companion with a pleasing design and some nice
08:23features like vehicle-to-load and app parking. On the downside, the AC is touch-operated and there's no
08:31physical button to deactivate the warning sounds of the assistance systems.
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