WHAT CAR?
SUV for versatile
With long ranges and the promise of great practicality and low running costs, any of these new electric SUVs could be ideal family transport. Let’s see whether Cupra, Ford or Kia makes the best all-rounder
LAWRENCE CHEUNGlawrence.cheung@haymarket.com
Photography: John Bradshaw
NEW
CUPRA TAVASCAN V1
List price £47,340
Target Price £47,340
Cupra hopes its first electric SUV will follow the success of the Born hatchback, with its promise of driver appeal and generous standard equipment
NEW
FORD CAPRI RWD Extended Range Select
List price £48,075
Target Price £45,795
Reinvented as a familyfriendly electric SUV, the new Capri is related to the Tavascan under the skin but has an even longer official range: a hefty 389 miles
NEW
KIA EV6 RWD GT-Line
List price £48,575
Target Price £46,305
This former What Car? Car of the Year is spacious, good to drive and fast to charge. A recent update (including a larger battery for a longer range) should make it even harder to beat
DEPENDING ON WHERE you are in life, you might be going through a rebellious phase or a nostalgic one. Cupra’s new electric SUV is here to appeal to the former, with angular bodywork and a curvy, coupé-like roofline to help you stand out from the crowd of boxier regular SUVs.
Meanwhile, the new Ford Capri is intended to bring a similar level of excitement, with the help of an iconic name to drum up some nostalgia. Like the Tavascan, it straddles the line between a coupé and an SUV, and both come from brands known for making cars that are good to drive. While they’re likely to appeal to slightly different crowds, they actually use the same underpinnings (also shared with the Audi Q4, Volkswagen ID 4 and others), due to a co-operative deal between Ford and the VW Group, of which Cupra is part. In RWD Extended Range guise and entrylevel Select trim (as tested), the Capri has a longer official range, though: an impressive 389 miles, compared with 353 miles for the Tavascan V1 with the same battery.
Both cars will have their work cut out against our third contender: the Kia EV6. This former favourite of ours in the family electric SUV class has just been updated with tweaked styling, a bigger battery (for a competitive official range of 361 miles) and retuned suspension in a bid to improve ride comfort. But are these changes enough to put the EV6 back on top in the face of these all-new rivals?
DRIVING
Performance, ride, handling, refinement
Although the Tavascan and Capri have identical power outputs (282bhp), the latter is the lighter by around 80kg, and this probably explains why it can accelerate a bit quicker. In our tests, the Capri posted a brisk 0-60mph time of 5.8sec, compared with 6.1sec for the Tavascan. But in reality, the margin is so fine that you’d be unlikely to notice.
Although the EV6 has less power (225bhp) and requires 7.1sec to reach 60mph from a standstill, it’s far from slow; it just delivers its power more gradually and lacks the initial urgency of its rivals. When they’re rolling along, though, all three have plenty of punch for getting up to motorway speeds or overtaking slower cars.
While the EV6 has a firm edge to its ride, it rounds off bumps in such a controlled manner that it feels the most composed and comfortable. The even firmer Capri is far more unsettled, with occupants’ heads being tossed from side to side continually along uneven roads. The Tavascan is somewhere in the middle, being comfier than the Capri overall, although it transmits larger thwacks into the car when dealing with big bumps and potholes.