2023 Cupra Born V+ review

The first electric model from Seat’s wild-child arm, Cupra, is here now, promising hot hatch performance and dynamics. Does it deliver?

We’ve yet to drive a pure electric model from VW (well a NZ-new model anyway), and that’s partly because the local importer steered clear of the ID.3 hatch, opting for the larger ID.4 crossover instead.

The bonnet seems almost imperceptibly to run into the screen and roof, while a wee lip spoiler in bronze follows the curves of the grille, giving the car a cheeky grin. As to performance, a 0-100 quoted time of 7 sec is pushing the hot hatch definition. But we shall see.

Born has been available for a while in Europe and it arrives here as Cupra is working on a midcycle refresh, due out in 2025.

But because it’s electric and sits on VW’s dedicated MEB platform, it has plenty of luggage space at 385L, and fairly decent room for rear seat occupants as well. A flat floor back there certainly helps. That’s because the motor sits on the rear axle, driving the rear wheels only, an increasingly rare plus point for hot hatch lovers.

And that’s the thing about electric; because the motors are so compact that frees up space for other things. Even items like gear levers can be removed and replaced with handier stuff like phone chargers and drinks holders up front.

The ‘gear lever’ is instead attached to the right side of the instrument cluster which, like modern Minis, raises and lowers with the steering column. To select forward or reverse, you merely rotate the gear knob one way or the other.

Rotate it again in the D setting and it selects B for maximum regen. It might seem like an odd place for it, but with familiarity it makes shifting between coasting and single-pedal driving a snip. Plus it clearly aids efficiency; 100km on the open road uses up around one-fifth of a battery charge.

On another aspect that’s peculiar to EVs, this one has no start button as such. Centrally unlocking it is enough to preset everything, so you just rotate the gear lever one way or the other and off you go.

Where a key would normally insert there’s a button you can press for “stop” if you want to turn off the motor old-school style. But it’s certainly not compulsory. Perhaps it is there for old time(r)’s sake.

Contributing factors; it’s not a heffalump at 1837kg, and has an aerodynamic CD of 0.27 so slips though the air well. Check out those aero alloys, perhaps the easiest to clean of any car yet.

We asked the distaff what she thought of the Cupra Born when dropping us off for another vehicle pick-up and she was of a similar mind to me; right from the outset we both thought it a well rounded thing. While most functionality has been relinquished to the touchscreen, here it is a little more intuitive than normal, only a little mind you.

It took a while to find the drive mode controls, best selected by the button sited on the left side of the wheel. Need a blast of acceleration for passing? You might want to hit the Cupra button which adds 20kW of boost.

Mainly though we drove it in Range which is like Eco, only with decent power, or in Comfort which felt similar to Range, in all honesty. Suspension is fixed so no change there between modes but the top two, Performance and Cupra, have more regen going on.

Or you can just swap between D and B for max regen, which is essentially one-pedal driving. We preferred that, while Range mode maximised, er, range.

The rear motor situation ensures a light front end and it almost comes across as mid-engined in its balance. Certainly the front is locked down nicely and steering feels neutral. This is great at maintaining midcorner speeds.

Steering isn’t especially quick and nor is it that feelsome, even with the lane assist turned off (easily done as it’s a frequent use setting) but point-to-point times in this are amazing.

Whatever, this is amongst the most convincing all-round electric packages I’ve driven, period. Well worth checking out if you want something compact, and don’t want to join the Tesla crowd.