There’s some significance in the fact that Cupra, the Volkswagen Group’s Spanish-based high-performance and electric car brand, spun off from Seat, was given first dibs on the reveal of its new, compact, front-wheel drive electric car.
The Cupra Raval is a significant model for the growing Cupra brand — seven new models in the past seven years, racking up one-million global sales and with a 32 per cent climb in Irish sales so far this year — as not only will its smallness and electric efficiency help to balance out the Group’s corporate emissions, it will also provide an enticing €26,000 entry price point when it arrives on Irish forecourts in the Autumn.
It’s more important than that, though. The Raval uses VW Group’s critical new MEB Plus architecture. It’s a front-wheel drive setup, compared to the rear-wheel drive MEB system used by larger models such as the Volkswagen ID.4 and Curpa’s own Born and Tavascan. That makes it potentially more space efficient, and there’s been a huge focus on bringing down the cost of building the car so that the final price can be made more attractive.
For now, though, the Raval holds centre stage, and it will, until the ID.Polo GTI arrives, the most overtly sporting model of the lot, with suspension that’s sportier, stiffer, and 15mm lower as well as the option of a 226hp ‘VZ’ (from the Spanish ‘Veloz’ for speed, or Veloç if you’re using the Catalan language native to Cupra’s home in Barcelona) which can sprint from 0-100km/h in 7.0 seconds.
That VZ model will be fast to charge, too — its 52kWh nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) battery is primed for 130kW DC fast charging, taking you from 10-80 per cent charge in a reasonable 23 minutes.
With a range of 395km though, the VZ is looking at shorter journeys on average than the Endurance model, which uses the same 52kWh battery and a 211hp motor for a potential range of 448km.
Don’t expect to get one of those for €26,000, though. That entry price will only get you a basic 116hp version of the Raval, with a 37kWh lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) battery and a range of up to 318km.
Oddly, there’s an upgrade to a more powerful motor — 135hp — which actually liberates a bit more range from that same battery, thanks to being able to harvest more brake energy recuperation, giving it a range of 323km. This smaller battery will only charge at up to 90kW on DC charging power, and takes 27 minutes to do a 10-80 per cent charge.
Inside, the Raval is fairly predictable, with a 12.9-inch infotainment screen and a new 10.25-inch driver’s instrument panel, which is also being rolled out to other VW Group electric models, replacing the older, smaller 5.3-inch screen. The big screen uses Google Android-based software, so it should be rather more slick than the fiddly VW Group interfaces of old.
Backing up the Raval’s eco-credentials is a cabin that’s made from lots of recycled material, with even the optional high-back bucket seats using a soft ‘Dinamica’ trim that’s made from 73 per cent recycled plastic. There’s a further option of an even fancier bucket seat made from a 3D-printed weave.
There’s a neat trick in the cabin whereby instead of having ambient light built into the door panels, Cupra is instead using projector bulbs to play light across the fabric of the doors, as Lexus has started doing in some of its models. Those clever ambient lights will be joined by a ring of LED lights around the dashboard, which flashes up warning lights and draws the driver’s attention to safety items.
Cupra’s also promising that, above all, the Raval will be fun to drive, fulfilling the brand’s sporty car brief.
The suspension is shared with VW and Skoda, but as well as some trick electronic tweaks to change the driving experience, Cupra has also altered the physical suspension and steering components.
That’s in order to try and turn the Raval into a small electric hot hatch (even though it uses a simpler, cheaper torsion beam rear suspension than the pricier multi-link setup of the Cupra Born), boasting that it will have a Mini-like ‘go-kart’ feel.
