Weve absolutely adored the fiesta st banged on about the civic type, r and loved the latest golf gti, all of them very different in so many ways, but still retaining that hot hatch brilliance. What is a hot hatch anyway, we can say those three cars are all hot hatches, but what makes those three really quite different machines, part of the same group. Well, after some intensive market research, we at jar – and i have come up with an important five point – test – to work out what is and isnt a hot hatch number one. Is it a hatchback quite obvious that really number two? Is it faster than the standard car couldnt really be called hot? If it wasnt, could it three? Is it lightweight you cant really chuck around something that weighs five tons? Can you four? Does it look cooler than the standard car i mean that could just be some nice decals or a big fat exhaust. Something like that five pretty key this one. Is it fun because you cant really have a hot hatch, thats, not fun, and that brings us to this badge right here. This sort of bronzy spider looking thing, because that that youve probably seen around a lot more recently means cupra and cupra for its entire life. Has meant only one thing: hot hatches, Music, but this one the cupra born, is an eevee and weve done some serious research and found that we dont think there is an eevee hot hatch for sale at the moment.

So the purpose of today is to work out whether the cooper born passes our five point, hot hatch test and therefore could be marketed as the worlds first ev hot hatch before we move on lets just answer. Question number one: shall we? Yes, historically, hot hatches have been lightweight, theyve, been fun, feisty little boxes that youd chuck around and have fun. In the original volkswagen golf gti, the first hot hatch was 810 kilograms. Even today, though, cars have got heavier. The current fiesta st weighs 1088 kilograms. The cooper boom, 1900 kilograms lightweight im afraid its, not that is nearly two tons for a car that might be a hot hatch. The golf r is a bit larger these days and thats, 500 or so kilograms lighter. Why batteries its as simple as that this cooper board has 58 kilowatt hours of battery stored inside the floor, to give it a stated range of 260 miles. It has 204 horsepower and 310 new meters of torque, so it will allow you to hit 62 miles an hour in 7.3 seconds, which brings us to now this one a little bit tricky, because there is no saiyan born theres, only a cupra ball, but underneath its Pretty much the same as a volkswagen id3, so we can use that as our base. The volkswagen id3 is well its exactly as quick as this one. However, if you spend a little bit more money, there are two other versions of the cooper.

One has exactly the same setup as this, but with e boost, so it has 231 horsepower. Another has a 77 kilowatt hour battery and will produce 310 horsepower and therefore well hit 62 miles an hour in 6.6 seconds and at that point, its only not 0.3 seconds slower to 62 miles an hour than the current golf gti. I think that means the cooper born passes test number three. Yes, we have missed the number here, but we will come back to that. I promise, i think, the question of whether the koopa board is fun, has a few more layers. And just is it good to drive around well start with whats it like in here, and you have to start there with the id3, because, as we all know, the id3 inside is a little bit uh its a little bit. Plasticky and low quality isnt it. But this one now this ones really nice and theyve, really tried to amp up the cooperness of this, its bronze absolutely everywhere, including in the middle of these rather jazzy seats, which you know they look like nice sports seats, but they provide absolutely no sideball string and Theres a little hole in the middle, but if you look its got loads of little bronze bits coming through the middle, the rest of it is all built from really nice quality materials. Its a lovely place to spend some time its a real upgrade on the id3. Take the nice crinkled plastic all around the sides.

It does still have the id3s infotainment system, which is well its a a little bit rubbish, but it is a lot nicer place to be than the id3 in almost every other way fun to drive. Well, its not exactly quick in a straight line, or at least it doesnt feel it especially compared to evs, but even compared to most hot hatches of its size, 7.3 seconds feels longer than it actually is when youre doing it and when you show it a corner, It doesnt roll its not like it becomes a horrible flabby mess when you send it from left to right, but its really not particularly happy that its happening, the suspension is smooth and its very comfortable thats. What this car is very good at its comfortable, but it doesnt feel happy when youre asking it to deal with lateral loads and, if youre ever to come across, say a bump in the middle of a corner. Well then, youll be presented with a slightly unnerving hop as it sort of tries to leave the ground, but also gather itself back together again its well its unnerving, the steering. Well, the nose is somewhere over there and my hands are here, but the two dont necessarily feel like they meet. You can make the steering heavier by changing it to its performance mode, which also quickens up the response to the throttle, but it doesnt really make a lot of difference, its a quick rack, so its not sluggish, but it doesnt really feel like its particularly happy when You do force it to turn in its also.

Unlike most hot hatches, rear wheel drive more efficient in an ev, and you can feel it especially in the wet, but especially if you turn the esc into sport, because you cannot turn it off for some reason. I dont know why you can get the back end to shimmy a little bit and in the wet you can get it to slide a little bit, especially when you put your foot down its actually, you know what thats actually quite fun, what its really good at What its best at its being comfortable when youve got it in comfort mode, it rides all these bumps perfectly. Happily, it will cruise along to your hearts content, but it will never engage you. It will never delight you. It will never excite you so its not that fun then, but this is actually just an upmarket id3 thats. Why theres, no sayatbon, a sayat would have had to have been cheaper than the id3, and the plastics in the vw are already reasonably low rent, so it needed a cupra batch. Put all that together and forget this hot hatch discussion for a minute, and this this is the car the id3 should have been all along. This interior is great. The seats are very comfortable, theres, absolutely bucket loads of storage space in here and, most importantly, its incredibly comfortable its list price of about 38 000. Pounds puts it also head on with the ionic five and thats in this top spec.

So does that render the entire premise of this film flawed? Well, no, because there is one more point: weve not done yet when you buy a whole hatch, you want it to look good. You want people to see you when youre around town, and i know that doesnt necessarily mean its a hot hatch, but id argue with this one it blowing well does because the way theyve started so start off here. Its got a great big, bronze splitter at the front, and then you go down the side and theres all this aero work in the sills and its deep and then theres. These massive 20 inch dishes of wheels and then at the back, its got a spoiler and most of all, its got a fake diffuser at the bottom and, if theres anything that screams hot hatch more than spoiler and diffuser im. Yet to see it and that well thats thats the whole ball game. The thing is i really like this car, its comfortable, its a really nice place to be. It looks great from the outside its so much better than the id3 theres, absolutely bucket loads of space and storage space and handy cubbies in here. If youve got a family, itll be brilliant and a great first ev for you. But the looks promise something that it could absolutely never live up to. Another problem is that cars like the kia ev6, may be more expensive and bigger, and not meant to look like a hot hatch, but they also show family evs can be fun to drive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP4WWgSrRwg