WHILE ALL CUPRA models are named after places in the brand’s Spanish homeland, it’s usually hard to see why the specific location was picked; if we were told someone in the marketing department had simply thrown a dart at a map of the country, we’d believe it, but the new Cupra Tavascan is an exception.
The village of Tavascan is best known for using its lakes to produce green energy, and that was always going to make it a tempting choice when Cupra sought a name for its first electric SUV. But does the car itself hold as much appeal for buyers of this sort of vehicle?
There are actually two versions of the Tavascan: a 282bhp, single-motor, rear-wheeldrive model and one with 335bhp, two motors and four-wheel drive. Whichever you choose, you get a 77kWh (usable capacity) battery, although this can take the lighter rear-wheeldrive car farther on a charge: 353 miles (in official tests) versus 324 miles. By comparison, the rear-wheel-drive version of the Volkswagen ID 5 manages only 342 miles, but the Renault Scenic and Tesla Model Y can both top 370.