Cupra Born VZ - long-term review

“We’re so confident you’ll fall in love with your Cupra Born in 100 days that if you don’t, we’ll make it really easy for you to return it.”

That’s the promise Cupra now makes for all private buyers of a Born in the UK. It calls it the ‘Love Me or Leave Me’ offer and if you’ve paid cash, you’ll get a 97 per cent refund of the amount you paid for the car if you don’t want to keep it after three months of ownership. If you’ve kept it in good nick, of course.

Despite six months of ownership passing, I’d like to think I’d still get the full amount for this particular Born VZ (minus that standard three per cent for wear and tear). It held up remarkably well with no issues to report. No bits of trim fell off, the excellent bucket seats look like they’ve barely seen contact with a bum and the infotainment system worked perfectly after one early wobble without requiring any OTA updates.

Although on a side note, I wouldn’t want to be selling it privately at this point – depreciation is still hitting EVs hard, and this exact car is now on sale through Cupra’s approved used system for £33,995. That’s compared to its initial £46,697 list price.

And yet, if I had bought the VZ I’m not sure I’d be selling it straight away or taking Cupra up on its refund. The Born has slipped very comfortably into my daily life, performing all the practical duties of a tall and comfortable hatchback.

The big 79kWh battery provides useful range, although thanks to the cold winter temperatures this year I did only manage to average 3.4 miles per kWh over almost 3,500 miles, meaning a real-world range of just under 270 miles on a single charge. That’s versus the 366 miles that Cupra claims. Ouch. A heat pump would improve things, but even though VZ prices start at a hefty £44,625 you still need to tick a £970 option box to get one.

‘My’ Born only got two options – special ‘Dark Forest’ paint for £930 and 20in forged wheels that cost over £1,100. Not sure I could live with the base spec grey paint, so if I didn’t want the spending to get out of hand, I’d have to sacrifice the supremely fancy wheels for a heat pump.

Worth noting that I have been running the Born without any access to off-street parking and home charging too, so I’ve mostly been topping up overnight on 5kW Shell Recharge lamppost chargers. At 49p per kWh, that means a full charge for those 270ish miles costs £38.71. Improving efficiency is key to drive down the cost per mile.

And with that relative lack of efficiency and without the safety net of home charging, I rarely drove the VZ like a proper hot hatch. So, although it is decent fun when the opportunity presents itself, for me those opportunities were too few and far between. If I was spending my own money on a Born, it’d go on a lesser trim level with the 77kWh battery.

That just leaves one more thing to discuss at the end of Born VZ ownership. And if I’m honest, it’s a bit of a confession that I need to make. You see, despite running electric cars in the past, I have become a terrible person during my time with the Born. That’s because I have been someone that simply throws the charging cables into the boot without putting them back into their respective bags and then just piles any luggage on top. Perhaps it was because the Born has useful luggage space that’s five litres larger than a Leon’s, but this is a habit that I’ll need to train myself out of sharpish.