2024 Cupra Born Review

The VW Group's first proper EV in Australia wasn't – as expected – the ID.3 but the rather cooler Spanish off-shoot's Cupra Born.

In a way, the Born is the ID.3, just not the one we were expecting. The Cupra brand was launching here and needed something to grab headlines next to the excellent Formentor range of petrols and hybrids.

A year after launch, I took a Cupra Born for its first drive in my hands to find out if the promise of its looks is delivered.

How much is the Cupra Born and what do I get?

$59,990 + ORC / $64,490 driveaway (NSW)

The Born arrived here in Australia 2023 and made a pretty immediate splash, selling out quickly. Cupra was happy with that and had to order more of them to satisfy demand.

Born comes in - effectively - three flavours as you can choose between the Interior package and the Performance Package. Four if you add both, but I'm not entirely sure you can do that.

Without a ticked box, you get 19-inch Typhoon wheels, auto LED headlights, auto wipers, tyre pressure monitoring, 12-inch media screen, surround-view cameras, heated leather steering wheel, keyless entry and start, front and rear parking sensors, dual-zone climate control, wireless Apple Carplay and Android Auto, DAB+ digital radio and a tyre repair kit.

You also get a 5.3-inch digital dashboard. I complained about a similarly-sized instrument pack in a BY Atto3 and I think this one is slightly too small as well. On the upside, the graphics package is way better and more readable, so it's not all drama.

The Interior package adds Aurora Blue Alcantara-style heated front seats (Cupra calls the fabric Dinamica) with 12-way adjustment, a two-seat rear bench replacing the three-seater, heated washer jets and a Beats-branded nine-speaker 395-watt stereo.

That's a $2900 addition.

The Performance Package adds 20-inch Firestorm alloy wheels 235/40 R20 Michelin Pilot Sport EV tyres, the same two-seat bench as the Interior package and adaptive damping.

That's a better-spent $2600 option (if you were to ask me).

The car I had featured the Performance package which is exactly what we need for this site.

How is the pricing compared to rivals?

The price compares well against EV competition and gives the Abarth 500e a smack around the chops. It's a few grand under a Tesla Model 3 (at the time of writing, we know how that price swings around), a Polestar 2 and a "normally" priced Peugeot 2008.

A similarly-sized BYD Atto3 is significantly cheaper in the mid-$40k but isn't anything like the Born apart from the size. Perfectly agreeable conveyance but not much else.

The MG4 X Power is a few more grand expensive and given it's so much quicker worth looking at but falls short dynamically. You'd be better off comparing with MG4 Long Range 77 with the sweeter rear-wheel drive chassis and mid-$50k price point. I'd argue (already) the Born is a better bet for the interior alone.

A Hyundai Ioniq 5 or Kia EV6, both of which are larger cars but with smaller batteries are a little higher again than the Tesla, Polestar or Peugeot. Neither of the Koreans has such a big battery at their lower price points.

Media and entertainment

VW Group's much-maligned basic software ships with the Born. I think everyone is a little too hard on it, it's not like you're saving lives with it or anything. The soft buttons are the things that need to be sent into the sun via the means of a rocket or large trebuchet. They're on the screen and the steering wheel and they're absurdly irritating because they're laggy and provide no feedback.

There's nothing as irritating as, say, a Tiguan R's steering wheel heating coming on if you hold the steering wheel like, say, a human, but gimme the old school mechanical buttons and I'll be much happier.

How safe is the Cupra Born? 5 Stars (ANCAP 2023)

The Cupra arrives from Spain with a set of seven airbags (including a front centre airbag to prevent head clashes in a side impact), forward AEB with pedestrian and cyclist detection, lane keep assist, blind spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert and driver attention monitoring.

Service and Warranty

5 years/unlimited kilometres (vehicle)
8 years/160,000km (battery)
12 months/15,000km service intervals

The Born's vehicle warranty matches the rest of the Cupra range at five years/unlimited kilometres which is in the middle, with most EVs at either five or seven years. The 500e is the obvious and irritating exception.

Servicing is when it should be, which is every year or 15,000km. You can buy a service pack for three years ($990) or five years ($1590), which feels a mite on the pricey side for an EV but I'm all for having the car looked at once a year no matter what. It's two tons of glass, steel and in this case battery.

Speaking of the battery, you get an eight year/160,000km warranty which is about right across the industry however I can't find anything which specifies where that warranty kicks in. Some companies warrant against a particular percentage of battery degradation (usually 20 or 30 percent) but Cupra is hedging its bets with the use of the word "excessive."

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Look and Feel

I think the Cupra Born looks great, which is something because the ID.3 on which it is obviously based is so dreary. Everything is so much sharper looking on the Born, with some terrific Cupra copper detailing.

I really like the way it stands on the road, too, and it's really clear a lot of thought has gone into this car.

The 20-inch Firestorm wheels are awesome and remind of the OZ Sparco rally wheels of the 1990s on cars like the superbly bonkers Ford Escort RS Cosworth.

I like the lighting, the full-width rear reflector, the blacked-out detailing, it all just works, even the side sills with the aero fence on it. Just superb.

It's not the World's Prettiest Car - we all know that's a Nissan Pulsar sedan (this is an in-joke for an audience of two) but it has the right balance of elegance and drama without the dreariness of the donor car.

Inside the front seats look superb, again with some really lovely detailing in the Performance version. I'm sure the Interior package ones look great too. I don't even mind the flat-bottomed steering wheel because it has that lovely, tactile Cupra logo in the centre.

It's not as appealing as the exterior but it's really nice to be in.

Those front seats are as comfortable as they look and carried us very comfortably to the Blue Mountains and back. Between the front seats is a roll-top covered pair of cupholders and further back an armrest over an open bin which houses the wireless charging pad.

In the back you get nicely-shaped chairs and in the Performance and Interior package-equipped cars, the middle seat goes in favour of a padded and lined tray arrangement but, weirdly, you don't lose the armrest with its pair of standard issue VW cupholders.

The boot is an impressive 385 litres and very easy to access.

Battery and Charging

82kWh (77kWh usable)
WLTP range: 511km
AC charging: 11kW
DC charging: 170kW

The Born ships with a whopping 82kWh battery pack which is the kind of size you see in expensive Euro sedans and SUVs or expensive-for-Chinese-brands machines. European Cupra customers have a choice of a smaller and obviously cheaper 58kWh pack but we're still on the high end, which makes sense to me.

Annoyingly, that smaller battery pack makes the Born quicker to 100km/h, but we'll get to that later.

WLTP figures for the Born with the 82kWh battery are a healthy 511km. In my week with the Born I averaged 18.2kWh/100km which translates to a range of 423km from 77kWh.

That doesn't sound amazing but the reality is, it's quite good. Picking on the Abarth 500e, it has a battery that's about two-thirds the size of the Born's but can only squeak out about 210km on a single charge. The Fiat 500e isn't remarkably better on the same pack.

On top of that, a huge chunk of my Born figure came from highway running, so with more city running you'd easily see 460km or even 480km if you were careful. I'd also bet a modest sum of money that the 19-inch wheeled Born was how Cupra got its WLTP number, making this Performance version's number even better.

You'll find the CCS2 charge port on the right rear quarter panel.

I charged once on an Evie 50kW charger and it held 49Kw for the most of the session delivering 32.39kW in 41 minutes. Obviously it slowed after about 80 percent, but I'm happy with that speed. You're unlikely to find a working 150kW or above charger, so this gives you good idea that a shopping trip is ample time to charge half the usable capacity.

Drivetrain

Under the stubby bonnet you can see some of the gear but it's neither the battery pack nor the motor. You'll find the motor between the rear wheels which is absolutely superb.

That motor kicks out 170kW and 310Nm for a 0-100km/h sprint of seven seconds flat.

Chassis

Two things are really important here. The Performance Pack adds wider 235/40 Michelin Pilot Sport EVs (I think they're Pilot Sport 4 based, let me know if I'm wrong). As well as those tasty wheels and tyres, the chassis scores adaptive damping.

The un-packaged car has 19s, narrower tyres and static suspension. I haven't driven one so equipped but I'm ever more curious as I write this to try it out.

The base car does feature progressive steering, though, which is nice, so that carries on to the packages. And, to repeat myself, it's rear-wheel drive.

Suspension is pretty conventional, with MacPherson struts up front and multi-link at the rear. The Performance Pack adds, I cannot stress this enough, adaptive damping that is probably worth the price of admission alone if you're keen on a bit of fun.

Having said that, I don't know what a non-adaptive car drives like, so when I find out, I'll let you know.

Given the car's weight, it's unsurprising that the front brakes are big at 340mm. Also unsurprising is the fact that the rear brakes are drums. That's where all the regen braking happens and in most cars the rears are just along for the ride.

I've mentioned more than once that this is based on the ID.3 but more accurately it is built on the VW Group's MEB (Modularer E-Antriebs Baukasten or modular electric-drive toolkit). That platform has spawned a startling array of new cars, including the Audi Q4 e-tron, the Skoda Enyaq iV, ID.4 through ID.7 and the awesome-looking ID.Buzz Kombi replacement.

And, surprisingly, the Europe-only Ford Explorer and the controversially-named Ford Capri EV pairing.

Driving

I really, really liked this car. It does everything.

Sometimes I'll have a car for a day and think, "I could totally have one of these." While the Born was initially impressive, it kept impressing me. The minor quibbles were around the slightly but not fatally annoying quirks of the media system, the small dashboard and not much else, basically.

Things are just where they're supposed to be. There are drive mode selectors on the steering wheel, everything is within easy reach and, once again, the electric motor is at the back.

So straight away the steering feels good – yes, it's light like just about all steering now (I have a palate-cleansing hydraulic-assisted BMW and by modern standards it feels so heavy), but there's no torque steer.

Even on a run to the shops, that makes a difference because having the torque at zero rpm causes shenanigans. But not here. So the Michelins can get on with the job of turning and stopping and going without any fuss.

The Born isn't a rocket but it's a lovey car in which you can get a flow on. I went for a fun thrash down through a road I know well, with terrible concrete panels that are misaligned after years of heavy vehicle use and tree roots.

You can hear the tyres working and that's a good thing because the limit is telegraphed well ahead of time so you can build confidence, leaning on the rubber harder and harder.

The adaptive damping is never too firm even in Cupra mode, which is a tremendous achievement because it's not sloppy either. In Range and Comfort modes, it's just easygoing and soaks up the bumps really nicely. But Cupra mode is so good, it doesn't matter.

Cupra mode mostly sharpens up the throttle and the steering and once again, it's finely-judged and adds to the fun.

It is a two-ton car with me on board and yet it doesn't feel like it. It feels like a well-sorted hatchback – dare I say it, a Golf – and that's a good thing, right down to the warm hatch performance.

The thing about it is that it does everything really well. The realistic 460-480km range means you're not forever charging it, its rolling performance is far better than its dash to the ton suggests making it a weapon in traffic. On our traditional run up to the Blue Mountains it was super-quiet, handled the crappy weather and didn't flatten the battery.

As an EV, it's great. As a warm hatch it's great. As an EV warm hatch it's...well...obviously great.

Anything else I need to know about the Cupra Born?

Nothing dramatic. We have heard that the Cupra Born VZ is on the way, which is a 240kW/545Nm hot hatch with a 0-100km/h time of 5.7 seconds. Which doesn't seem like an incredible use of 70 more kilowatts or 235Nm, but here we are. The range is apparently unaffected but I don't believe that for a second.

The front seats look amazing, though. No pricing that I'm aware of for Australia but it is out in Europe for around €52,000-plus. That's a lot, putting it in the probable mid-$70k range.

There are low mileage 2023 Borns kicking around for about $47,000 which I think is extraordinary value given that's less than what a BYD Atto3 Extended Range costs. I know what I'd rather have. There's even a Performance Pack one for $49,000 with 5700km on the clock.

Redline Recommendation

The Born is probably a ripper of a car in its basic spec and I reckon is probably 80 percent of the fun this car is. The extra $2600 for the Performance pack is likely money well spent and that's what I'd do if buying new or searching for a used one.

But given the might of the VW Group behind this machine, the proven MEB platform and the fun of the Cupra chassis magic, the only reason our roads aren't infested with this thing is the EV starting price.

So yeah, if you're thinking about it, this is genuinely great car to drive and I reckon it would be great to own.