After spending a week with an electric car as my main vehicle, opinions I’d formed about them prior to spending so much time with one have changed — and some quite dramatically.
I learned that while I now know I could easily live with one, which I wasn’t sure was the case before, I also found out that I still wouldn’t want to, but for a very different reason than I expected.
Quiet and effortless
The car I’ve been driving for the last week is the Cupra Born VZ, an aggressively styled hatchback with 326 horsepower, some of the best seats I’ve ever sat in, and a fantastic Sennheiser audio system. Even the software was a pleasant surprise, rivaling the best smartphones I’ve reviewed. All the modern safety features were either easily muted or surprisingly helpful, like the way it could read the road ahead and almost telepathically anticipate my moves and reactions.
After the first day of experimenting with its considerable performance, I settled down into driving the Born VZ sensibly and found this was its absolute sweet spot. It was so different from what I expected from an electric car. The acceleration figures related to EVs are endlessly discussed and hyped up, and I thought it would be the car’s defining aspect, but it’s not at all. I found the midrange acceleration — of which there is plenty — far more usable, and it significantly contributed to making the Born VZ so fantastic to drive.
Breezing past slow-moving traffic allowed me to make smooth, effortless, supremely comfortable progress in the Born VZ, and the more I drove it, the smoother and more mature my driving style became as I rode the waves of torque. It suited the silence of the electric car, the lightness of the steering, and the aforementioned assistance from the safety features. I never expected an EV to have such a dramatic effect on my driving style and the way I approached driving in general. As a mode of transport that I’d love to use every day, it was almost perfect.
Jump in and go
Both my usual cars are gas-powered, and I’m probably inordinately careful about not driving them for short distances. Neither car I own is suited to such things, and I worry about undue wear on the engines, making journeys that are too far for me to walk, yet too short to properly warm up the engine less than ideal. I loved not worrying about anything like this in the Born VZ, which was another aspect I had not considered before living with an electric car.
It’ll sound silly, but even not having to wait for the cold start process to end before driving away was lovely, as was having all the power I could want immediately, without any requirement to be mechanically sympathetic. It all added to the enormous convenience of EV ownership I was quickly discovering. Another shock came after I handed the car back. I realized that I hadn’t felt “range anxiety” — another oft-discussed and off-putting electric car issue — during my week with the car.
I only charged the car three times, as it had a substantial range of about 330 miles, and for my personal requirements, this would turn out to be plenty. I doubt I’d need to charge the car for two or sometimes even three weeks if it was maxed out. As my driving style became more laid-back, I saw that after switching to the even more relaxed “Range” driving mode, the available range from the batteries barely seemed to diminish at all. For reference, and to help you understand how big of a change the electric car was for me, I have never used the Eco mode available in my gas-powered car.
I was wrong about EVs
Just over a year ago, I thought long and hard about buying an electric car, but I didn’t and bought a gas-powered sports car instead. I was happy about it then and am still happy with my choice today. Even though the Born VZ is a car designed with performance driving in mind, living with it has shown me it’s actually a rival to my other more “normal” car, as even with all of its power, I can’t ever imagine wanting to drive it enthusiastically on a twisty road through choice. It’s just too heavy and ungainly.
Instead, I never once cared about sitting in traffic or when a car in front of me dithered about. The roads I know best became just roads, and I paid more attention to the sound of the Sennheiser speakers than I did to the driving modes. Driving was different in the EV, and I was a different driver.
I’ve loved my time with an EV. It has been one of the easiest, most pleasant, convenient, and relaxing driving experiences I’ve had. Using it every day for those regular, ordinary trips would be wonderful, as I know I’d come out the other end feeling like I’d just come back from a weekend retreat in the country, complete with meditation workshops and free massages. If I didn’t return the Born VZ to Cupra, I’d be making full use of it for some otherwise tedious trips I have planned, happy in the knowledge it would make them supremely comfortable and enjoyable.
Welcome to my future
So, why am I not swapping my regular car for an electric car?
It’s all just too normal. The Born VZ has been clinical, precise, and utterly faultless. It completed everything without any fuss, which isn’t a negative, but a good thing. I soon discovered there was no emotion of involvement in the drive, but I didn’t care as it didn’t need any. There are even faster EVs out there, but I seriously wonder if I’d just settle down into cruising around in them after playing with the acceleration a few times, just as I have with the Born VZ. I’m almost positive I’d do it immediately in a slower EV.
There will come a time when I don’t want the excitement, noise, and drama of a sports car or performance hatchback, and that’s when an EV will be at the very top of my shopping list. I’m so glad I didn’t buy one last year, as I now fully understand it would have been completely the wrong choice, but I’m also so pleased to discover that when the time is right, an EV will be there waiting for me to enjoy driving in a very different way.
I’m quite looking forward to it.