Cupra Raval Endurance on a long trip: 434 km through the mountains on one charge, in TeslaHolic's test
The Romanian channel TeslaHolic took the new Cupra Raval Endurance on a mountain loop in north-eastern Romania without a single charging stop. It got home with 5% battery and an average of 11.1 kWh/100 km.
Can a small electric city hatchback handle a long mountain trip? The Romanian YouTube channel TeslaHolic put that question to the new Cupra Raval Endurance. The car left Iași with a 100% battery on a route of roughly 430 km with two mountain crossings: the Stânișoara Pass and the road over the Ceahlău massif, below Toaca peak. It didn't stop to charge once. It got home after 434 km with 5% battery and an average consumption of 11.1 kWh/100 km.
The full video is below. It runs almost 44 minutes and is in Romanian (YouTube's auto-translated subtitles help), and the mountain sections are worth watching.
To jump straight to the car itself, from 2:13 the presenter explains what the Raval actually is and what it's built on.
What the Cupra Raval is
As TeslaHolic points out, the Raval isn't a facelift or a spin-off of another model. It's a new car built on the Volkswagen Group's MEB+ platform, an upgraded version of MEB designed for the B segment. For now it's front-wheel drive only. Three other models have entered production on the same base: the Volkswagen ID. Polo, the ID. Cross and the Skoda Epiq. The Raval is slightly wider and lower than its siblings, to sharpen its handling.
The car is built in Martorell, near Barcelona. The battery comes from PowerCo, Volkswagen's battery company, at a plant in Sagunto, near Valencia. It uses a cell-to-pack design and a 400 V architecture, with a protective shield underneath.
The key figures for the Endurance version, which match Cupra's technical data:
| Cupra Raval Endurance | |
|---|---|
| Battery | 55 kWh gross / 52 kWh usable |
| Motor | front, 211 hp (155 kW), 290 Nm |
| 0-100 km/h | 7.1 s |
| Top speed | 160 km/h |
| Charging | 11 kW AC, up to 105 kW DC |
| 10-80% on DC | about 24 minutes |
| WLTP range | 413-446 km |
The test: fun on the hairpins, maths on the way down
With a full battery, the car estimated 365 km at the start. The presenter had done the maths: to finish without charging, he needed to average no more than 12 kWh/100 km. There were two people on board plus 50 kg of luggage, which was dropped off in Piatra Neamț.
On the Stânișoara hairpins he drove in Cupra mode, which firms up the steering, adds a Formula E-inspired sound and maxes out regeneration. Over the last 7 km of the climb, consumption shot up to 45 kWh/100 km. On the other hand, the car didn't lose power after repeated full-throttle runs, and the front axle kept its grip even with the traction control light flashing. On the roughly 20 km descent, the average was 4.8 kWh/100 km.
A few things that impressed TeslaHolic:
- Regenerative braking: the strongest setting is, in his words, more aggressive than a Tesla's, and you can't feel the handover from regen to the friction brakes (the "one box" system).
- Automatic regen mode: the car reads speed signs and bends and slows down on its own before them.
- Build quality: nothing rattles, and the materials are close to premium.
- The 441-litre boot, very large for the B segment.
On the minus side: the rear seats are tight for adults, the cloth seats aren't ventilated (he got sweaty on the more demanding stretches), and the test car didn't have the Light & Sound pack with ambient lighting and a better audio system.
The final numbers
At half battery, after 214 km, the car estimated another 213 km. At the end, after 434 km, it had 5% left and showed 27 km of range. The average over the whole trip was 11.1 kWh/100 km, driving with normal traffic and without hypermiling.
On the motorway, the presenter doesn't think the Raval would go much beyond 250 km at 130 km/h. He only drove on national and county roads, though, so that's an estimate, not a measurement.
Price
In Romania, the Raval Endurance starts at €35,252 including VAT. The test car had about €5,000 of extras, including Manhattan Grey paint, Matrix LED headlights and 19-inch wheels, bringing it to around €41,000. TeslaHolic admits that at that price many people will look at a Model Y Standard, but says not everyone wants a Tesla.
His verdict: the Raval is still a city hatchback, but one you can rely on for a long trip, as long as it isn't mostly motorway. Above all, it's a lot of fun to drive.
The test and footage belong to the TeslaHolic channel. If you enjoyed it, give the video a like and subscribe.
