Would you have another Born?

[SirRahikkala]

Would I get another Born? I’ve had the car for about 6 weeks now and the positives are, it looks great, it’s a really nice drive, it’s spacious inside.

Negatives are, in the current UK cold snap where it’s currently between 4 degrees C to -1 in London, I’m getting around 2m/kWh. The DC charge rate looks like it’s too slow even in optimal conditions (let’s put aside charge curves etc), if I go by what Cupra are saying, 120kW, it’s highly unlikely I’ll achieve that but I hope I’m wrong. I achieved 50ish last week. Finally, the infotainment system is quite bad, it crashes quite often requiring a restart, parking camera often stops working, front assist doesn’t work in the cold when there’s condensation on the car body.

The user interface is really poorly designed, it has too many layers of menus for simple settings like climate control and turning off things like lane assist or changing the driving mode. Very very clunky.

Yeah, I've had the car since august this year and lots of same observations. Even the newer 3.2.1 does not fix the UI/UX issues the infotainment has. Somehow I get the feeling that the persons who coded the interface, never actually got into car at all or used it outside of computer screen. Not to mention about the charging rates mentioned above... Also I feel some cold draft coming from the center console. Maybe from the "closed" vents.

[tuppaware]

Range drop in the cold?
*laughs from tropical summer where the aircon doesn't work hard enough *

My opinion is quite different based on the aussie spec being very different from the European models.
I would buy it again, maybe but I'd wait a generation or two until VW sorted their button/UI shit out. We don't get app connectivity here (at the moment) so it seems like the infotainment is much more stable in our altered version without that. The rest of the issues seem quite small in comparison, obviously I'd like the Tesla software on a car that has the Cupra styling but its a solid fun car and the limited numbers of the Born here (like less than 400) means that you rarely see others and turn heads wherever I go.

[milkyway55]

There is no actual preconditioning for charging. The car will heat the battery just little bit along the AC but there is no preconditioning to warm up the battery either manually or with navigation to charging point. None of the MEB plaftorm cars have it except latest ID7 and I think ID Buzz. Latest info points to the fact that cars with ID software V4.x will have it but none of the existing cars with V3 will get it. You can activate it manually for 5 minutes with OBDEleven via service functions so the ability precondition is there but VAG group is doing planned obsolence.

Are you sure? My car is currently pre-heating (at 100% battery) thus not charging. It's pulling 4.4kW from the grid which would suggest that it's doing something else other than heating the cabin - which isn't that cold as it had already pre-heated the cabin about 3 hours ago for a different trip.

Edit: it's currently, 4 degrees outside and I'm on software version 3.5

[SirRahikkala]

There is no actual preconditioning for charging. The car will heat the battery just little bit along the AC but there is no preconditioning to warm up the battery either manually or with navigation to charging point. None of the MEB plaftorm cars have it except latest ID7 and I think ID Buzz. Latest info points to the fact that cars with ID software V4.x will have it but none of the existing cars with V3 will get it. You can activate it manually for 5 minutes with OBDEleven via service functions so the ability precondition is there but VAG group is doing planned obsolence.

Are you sure? My car is currently pre-heating (at 100% battery) thus not charging. It's pulling 4.4kW from the grid which would suggest that it's doing something else other than heating the cabin - which isn't that cold as it had already pre-heated the cabin about 3 hours ago for a different trip.

Edit: it's currently, 4 degrees outside and I'm on software version 3.5

It would be interesting to see some data via OBD port what is going on. That consumption is interesting but then again 100% there is no need for "preconditioning" since it's full.

[un_born]

I have to say that, love the styling and practicality of the Born, we would not get another. Feels like we have been Guinea Pigs owners of a product that had many issues. Now its the battery recall....

I wanted a Q4 but the Mrs didn't want something as big. I wonder if the Q4 has the same amount of issues... At least I know with the Q4 the infotainment system works as it should!

Our main reason to get an EV (not just the Born) was the BIK for an EV, the free London CC and subsidised Westminster parking.

The london perks end in 2 more years (25/12/2025) and no doubt BIK's will have gone up too. So I can't see a reason for getting another EV. The Born replacement will definitely be a Hybrid of some description and if any BIK benefit plug-in compared to IC cars as of today, may consider a Plug-in hybrid but I doubt we would be looking at a replacement for the Born till at least 2026. The main reason for this is that we bought ours outright and the resale values of EV are going to be dire.

[rsg444]

What's this about a battery recall?

[alanjs]

What's this about a battery recall?

If you look at the first forum page you will find an enormous thread about it.

[smbmetal]

So the rough yes/no/not sure figures are:

Yes - 9
No - 8
Not Sure - 1

Apologies if I've missed the odd one or misinterpreted.

Thanks for all the replies to the thread.

[rsg444]

What's this about a battery recall?

If you look at the first forum page you will find an enormous thread about it.

What forum? Lol just joking - that thread started in June so I assumed you were referring to yet another more recent recall. Cheers.