CUPRA Tavascan SUV (2024 - ) review

The Tavascan starts at just under £50,000, sitting between the Volkswagen ID.5 and Audi Q4 Sportback e-tron. Most people will likely finance their Tavascan, expanding the pool of competitors depending on the deals available. While you can’t buy one yet, orders will open in July with first deliveries expected by the end of the year. Like all electric cars, the running costs will greatly depend on your circumstances. Charging at home will help to keep costs down yet relying on public charging could be more expensive. Meanwhile if you are a company car driver going electric will help to reduce your Benefit In Kind.

Built in VW’s Chinese factory the Tavascan shares foundations with many other models, including the Q4 Sportback e-tron, ID.5, Enyaq Coupe and Cupra’s existing electric car the Born. This should help give confidence components are tried and tested. While Volkswagen has taken some stick for glitchy infotainment systems in recent times work has been done to improve the software so the Tavascan will hopefully be more robust. Cupra has recently increased its warranty length providing five years of cover for up to 90,000 miles rather than the industry standard three years. The battery will also have its own eight-year/100,000 mile warranty giving peace of mind should the capacity drop below 70 per cent.

The Tavascan comes with an extensive list of driver aids and assistance features to alert or proactively intervene to avoid collisions. Traffic sign recognition shows you the speed limits and other warning signs in the driver display, there’s fatigue detection and assistance systems monitor the road ahead and checking for obstacles including other cars, pedestrians and bicycles when turning. The Travel Assist function works with the adaptive cruise control keeping you in the centre of your lane, adjusting your speed round corners and should be able to assist lane changing on motorways too. We liked how the information about the distance from other cars and the curve of tight bends popped up in our eye-line on the augmented reality head-up display on our test car. As with many of these systems it’s not perfect and can feel disconcerting when the car takes control, however these features can be switched off, though they will reactivate when you turn the car off and on again.

The interior is the highlight of the Tavascan. Cupra calls the shape of the central console the spine, it's shaped like a whale tail, drawing the eye from the soft touch dashboard down to the cupholders in the armrest between the front seats. It's distinctive and sure to be a talking point. Of the three available interior ‘characters’ our test car had the Dark Night option with blue suede-effect seats and door inserts made from up to 50 percent recycled microfibre. Copper effect highlights can be found throughout the car, illuminated by the ambient lighting strips included on the optional Immersive Pack. The doors are peppered with little backlit arrowhead shapes and each surface has its own texture to add extra interest. Lower down in the cabin the plastics become harsher reducing the otherwise plush feel, but the overall effect is much more of a statement than other cars from the Volkswagen Group. The seats were comfortable as we drove over the smooth Spanish roads on our test route with the Tavascan’s suspension in Comfort mode coping well over the occasional speed bump. We'll have to wait to see how it gets on with the UK's potholes, but we are hopeful the ride quality will be less choppy than the Peugeot E-3008. In the back legroom is generous with decent headroom and there’s plenty of boot space with added flexibility from the adjustable height floor.

Atop the central interior “spine” sits a 15-inch infotainment display familiar to anyone who’s been in any of Volkwagen’s ID cars or Cupra’s Born. This now comes with backlit sliders for the temperature and volume controls which are a vast improvement, but the screen remains a little fiddly on the move. If you use the in-built sat-nav augmented reality directions will hover over junctions in the head-up display. This works well and it’s a shame you won’t get this view if you are using Apple CarPlay or Android Auto for navigation. Other niggles include the touch sensitive buttons on the steering wheel, which are too easy to catch by mistake. There’s lot of them in a rather cluttered arrangement, but you’ll likely get used to them over time. Critically, the Tavascan will not come with a heat pump as standard. If you are hoping to maximise your range in colder conditions you’ll need to specify the Winter Pack. This also adds a heated windscreen and entry level Tavascans gain heated seats in the front while higher level add them in the rear.

The Tavascan is offered with two power options each using a 77kWh battery pack. There’s the rear-wheel drive Endurance model promising just over 350 miles of range and an all-wheel drive dual motor VZ version with a WLTP range of 324 miles. We tried the VZ which allowed for comfortable motorway overtaking, though even with 340 horsepower it didn't feel particularly fast by electric car standards. We expect most people will opt for the Endurance with more range and look forward to trying it out when it arrives here. During our test drive we found the Tavascan to be difficult to drive smoothly, not helped by the heavy accelerator pedal needing a firm jab to get you going. While generally it offered even acceleration, occasionally it could jerk unexpectedly from a standstill and when it was time to slow down its brakes were similarly inconsistent. This seemed partly due to the automatically adjusting regenerative braking which didn’t fully turn off in Comfort mode. You can however use the paddles behind the steering wheel to manually cycle through the three levels of regeneration or choose ‘B-mode’ for almost one-pedal driving. While the Tavascan’s steering had a nicely balanced feel, it’s still a heavy electric car and doesn’t feel as sporty as its aerodynamic coupe shape suggests. Erring on the side of efficiency rather than the performance, we reckon you’re likely to get just under 300 miles of range in real driving conditions. However, when you do need to plug in, the Tavascan can go from 10-80 per cent in under 30 minutes on a suitably powerful charger.