CUPRA Tavascan V1 286 Review
- Thread starter Syphon
- Start date
I never realise how long they are until they get posted on here, when I'm writing them it doesn't look long enough 
, happy to try and answer any questions whilst it's sort of fresh in my mind.
, happy to try and answer any questions whilst it's sort of fresh in my mind.
That's a very detailed review Jim. On solar you loose your 15p/kwh income when the sun is shining on Octopus, so not free. We have to do these cost benefit analysis on deciding when to tumble dry, washing machine etc. . On Agile pick a windy day and you get paid 2p/kwh when they are dumping it to customers. Reckon if I had an EV I'd be popping out to keep it charged up. Some of the charges do split charging on solar, sum to the car and sum to the grid. Depends on your car use. Reckon I'd get by on solar and windy nights 
. Octopus have day / night EV tariffs but higher costs in the day, lower at night. Historic Smartmeter data and tariffs is available so you can do what if's and factor in your modelled charging regime.
On the cars menu system I did spot the one where it will power the house going backwards. You need a special charger for that with an invertor but then some Australian tables I saw had the Tavascan as a car you can't do that with. Could have been a fault in the publishers tables or the Tavascan screens that seemed to show you could do this operation. Living in the countryside with periodic wobbly power supply, 36 hours off last time, I have my eye on the battery. The Tesla home power banks come in 10 kw batteries that car has got effectively eight of them. Tesla charge £5,000 for each as I recall. In the freezing cold with the oil CH off during the last power cut running the CH pump off an EV battery had many attractions. What they do in Ireland now those with a suitable EV power the house up when the grid fails. More in Ireland than the UK.
It's called bi-directional charging, based on Cupras site it doesn't do it:
www.cupraofficial.co.uk
What is bi-directional charging?
Bi-directional charging permits using an electric vehicle's battery as an energy source. Examples include "Vehicle to Load", which allows utilising the car's battery to charge devices like e-scooters or e-bikes. Another is "Vehicle to Home", which makes it possible to send stored power back from the vehicle into a home, taking advantage of dynamic electricity rates to draw from the battery during peak periods. “Vehicle to Grid” enables transferring electricity back from an electric vehicle into the wider power network.
While the technology for bi-directional charging has been incorporated into some CUPRA electric vehicles, the interfaces and wallboxes required to enable this functionality have not been made available at this time. Currently, our focus is on maximising energy usage through intelligent charging techniques, while also keeping costs low.
So much for that then. Vehicle to Home is the key aspect of bi-directional charging. What was missing in the Australian table for the Tavascan.
Anyhow car. The leg space seems troubling on the steering wheel. I jack my Ateca seat up to give the desk chair position, good for the back. I've had cars with the pesky steering wheel in your lap. The Tarraco and Ateca seating is the same if you don't push the rear seats back. Thus I suspect the issue is the depth of the EV battery removing cabin leg height. You'd need an engineering cut through diagram to check ?.
I might wait for thinner EV batteries. Off to MK latter in the year so I'll try the seating out in a Cupra dealership. I believe Seat may service Cupras but if not, another negative, you don't want an 80 mile round trip for a service or fault finding. My gripe for reducing Cupra to specific dealers. I'm keeping a watching brief on EVs. That Elrog dealer is much closer...
. On Agile pick a windy day and you get paid 2p/kwh when they are dumping it to customers. Reckon if I had an EV I'd be popping out to keep it charged up. Some of the charges do split charging on solar, sum to the car and sum to the grid. Depends on your car use. Reckon I'd get by on solar and windy nights . Octopus have day / night EV tariffs but higher costs in the day, lower at night. Historic Smartmeter data and tariffs is available so you can do what if's and factor in your modelled charging regime.On the cars menu system I did spot the one where it will power the house going backwards. You need a special charger for that with an invertor but then some Australian tables I saw had the Tavascan as a car you can't do that with. Could have been a fault in the publishers tables or the Tavascan screens that seemed to show you could do this operation. Living in the countryside with periodic wobbly power supply, 36 hours off last time, I have my eye on the battery. The Tesla home power banks come in 10 kw batteries that car has got effectively eight of them. Tesla charge £5,000 for each as I recall. In the freezing cold with the oil CH off during the last power cut running the CH pump off an EV battery had many attractions. What they do in Ireland now those with a suitable EV power the house up when the grid fails. More in Ireland than the UK.
It's called bi-directional charging, based on Cupras site it doesn't do it:
CUPRA Frequently Asked Electric Vehicle Questions (FAQs) | CUPRA UK
Read our most frequently asked questions about CUPRA Electric Vehicles.
What is bi-directional charging?
Bi-directional charging permits using an electric vehicle's battery as an energy source. Examples include "Vehicle to Load", which allows utilising the car's battery to charge devices like e-scooters or e-bikes. Another is "Vehicle to Home", which makes it possible to send stored power back from the vehicle into a home, taking advantage of dynamic electricity rates to draw from the battery during peak periods. “Vehicle to Grid” enables transferring electricity back from an electric vehicle into the wider power network.
While the technology for bi-directional charging has been incorporated into some CUPRA electric vehicles, the interfaces and wallboxes required to enable this functionality have not been made available at this time. Currently, our focus is on maximising energy usage through intelligent charging techniques, while also keeping costs low.
So much for that then. Vehicle to Home is the key aspect of bi-directional charging. What was missing in the Australian table for the Tavascan.
Anyhow car. The leg space seems troubling on the steering wheel. I jack my Ateca seat up to give the desk chair position, good for the back. I've had cars with the pesky steering wheel in your lap. The Tarraco and Ateca seating is the same if you don't push the rear seats back. Thus I suspect the issue is the depth of the EV battery removing cabin leg height. You'd need an engineering cut through diagram to check ?.
I might wait for thinner EV batteries. Off to MK latter in the year so I'll try the seating out in a Cupra dealership. I believe Seat may service Cupras but if not, another negative, you don't want an 80 mile round trip for a service or fault finding. My gripe for reducing Cupra to specific dealers. I'm keeping a watching brief on EVs. That Elrog dealer is much closer...
Thanks for all that info, the bi directional charge sounds pretty cool, like my phone can charge the wife's through wireless charging, handy when you need it.That's a very detailed review Jim. On solar you loose your 15p/kwh income when the sun is shining on Octopus, so not free. We have to do these cost benefit analysis on deciding when to tumble dry, washing machine etc.
On the cars menu system I did spot the one where it will power the house going backwards. You need a special charger for that with an invertor but then some Australian tables I saw had the Tavascan as a car you can't do that with. Could have been a fault in the publishers tables or the Tavascan screens that seemed to show you could do this operation. Living in the countryside with periodic wobbly power supply, 36 hours off last time, I have my eye on the battery. The Tesla home power banks come in 10 kw batteries that car has got effectively eight of them. Tesla charge £5,000 for each as I recall. In the freezing cold with the oil CH off during the last power cut running the CH pump off an EV battery had many attractions. What they do in Ireland now those with a suitable EV power the house up when the grid fails. More in Ireland than the UK.
It's called bi-directional charging, based on Cupras site it doesn't do it:
CUPRA Frequently Asked Electric Vehicle Questions (FAQs) | CUPRA UK
Read our most frequently asked questions about CUPRA Electric Vehicles.
What is bi-directional charging?
Bi-directional charging permits using an electric vehicle's battery as an energy source. Examples include "Vehicle to Load", which allows utilising the car's battery to charge devices like e-scooters or e-bikes. Another is "Vehicle to Home", which makes it possible to send stored power back from the vehicle into a home, taking advantage of dynamic electricity rates to draw from the battery during peak periods. “Vehicle to Grid” enables transferring electricity back from an electric vehicle into the wider power network.
While the technology for bi-directional charging has been incorporated into some CUPRA electric vehicles, the interfaces and wallboxes required to enable this functionality have not been made available at this time. Currently, our focus is on maximising energy usage through intelligent charging techniques, while also keeping costs low.
So much for that then. Vehicle to Home is the key aspect of bi-directional charging. What was missing in the Australian table for the Tavascan.
Anyhow car. The leg space seems troubling on the steering wheel. I jack my Ateca seat up to give the desk chair position, good for the back. I've had cars with the pesky steering wheel in your lap. The Tarraco and Ateca seating is the same if you don't push the rear seats back. Thus I suspect the issue is the depth of the EV battery removing cabin leg height. You'd need an engineering cut through diagram to check ?.
I might wait for thinner EV batteries. Off to MK latter in the year so I'll try the seating out in a Cupra dealership. I believe Seat may service Cupras but if not, another negative, you don't want an 80 mile round trip for a service or fault finding. My gripe for reducing Cupra to specific dealers. I'm keeping a watching brief on EVs. That Elrog dealer is much closer...
If I was going solar I'd definitely get a battery but then thinking about it getting the house done with a decent enough battery must take 10-15 years to pay off itself then you'd need to replace the panels after a while I assume haha
As for the steering wheel, it puzzled me for a while and I thought I was doing something wrong, the steering wheel didn't seem to go UK very far due to the dash being quite low and smaller than my tarraco full width version, I pumped the seat all the way down and it just didn't fit right when the Tarraco is far more spacious in the front for the driver. Although the Tavascan did have nice soft bits for my knee to lean against which was nice haha.
Solar:
It's about 11 years or so payback for solar without a home battery. There is like a home battery movement in some quarters and that adds another £5,000 and there is a debate of the cost benefit of the home battery. Discounted cash flows.
What put me off as well on the home battery, I'd have to have the drive dug up to the garage to relay the cable if the battery is to go in there. You need the mains out from the meter before it hits the house to go off to the battery / invertor and back to the house. You can store the batteries indoors or outside. In all weather not a good idea. So having the block paving up to put a heavy duty cable both ways and the cost / benefit of a home battery put me off that.
There is a 20amp cable running to the garage so you can work out the number of panels you can get away with without blowing the fuse. Used Heatable. 12 panels was the maximum. Installer put 11 on siting a small tree prevented the ladder going up. Thought they would go up and over.
We can boil a kettle on them as I say. 3.2 kw is the max I've seen off them todate. Enphase unit with microinvertors on each panel. More pricy than string panels. Quick course string panels are wired in series. Shade can be a problem as it cuts down the output like a resistor in the system (chimney issue example), one invertor. Microinvertor panels, invertor on the back of each panel, cables down where they are married up. No shade issue and the Enphase control system. More Cupra and Seat which would be string. Pricy but better information. You can see the performance in real time and historic data.
You do need WiFi to wherever the control unit is placed. Use some old TP plug and socket wifi unit which I had that worked surprisingly well. Never did in the house. Other than that you need an ethernet cable to the control unit. The system works without Internet and the control unit stores data and will pass back one connection is remade. Really a monitoring unit.
You can get a spur off the fuse box for the car charger so that would go outside not in the garage. You need an isolation switch if doing the bi directional car to home thing that Cupra says they don't support yet. Some regular chargers do a 50:50 solar charging so it you are producing power, 50% will go to the car, 50% sold to the grid or you send all to the car. So that's regular charging but using solar to top up. Always those EV night time tariffs or pick your period with Agile Octopus. Swings and roundabouts. These are the fancy chargers.
Maximum current price you get from selling on the excess power to the grid is 15p/kwh. People with battery systems resell the power they get in the night back to the grid in the day. We are on electric oven cooking here and I worked out we would soon empty a 5kwk battery in next to no time on the evening meal. Another variable.
Car:
Seating. A weird one. Might be just the low slung seating or non configuration of the steering wheel or the battery.
Think I'll have a sit in the Elrog for comparison. That's the electric Karog (Skoda's Ateca) designed on. So jumping between the two would indicate whether the underfloor battery gets in the way of good SUV seating as we know in the Ateca and Tarraco.
Those are my two parameters good seating and bidirectional charging in a SUV EV
. Want to use that battery in emergencies in the home. That which Cupra says they don't support but appears on the cars menu. I have no rush to replace the Ateca. Might all merge up with the Terramar 2 with an EV in the range... you never know. I'd buy top of the range so I wouldn't have to worry about these pesky things of no heat pump etc.
Last edited:
As new SUVs go I don’t mind the look of that from the outside. Actually saw one parked up the other day and it looks decent.
As for the inside, not my cup of tea at all.
Really looks like a concept car, which I know most will love.
Think I’m stuck in the 2000’s which is going to be a problem one day when I have to jump into a new car and work out what to do.
It’s unbelievable how much car interior’s have changed looking at my 21 year old mk1 Leon compared to that.
I’ll be keeping my old fleet for as long as possible but as usual enjoyed reading your review and keeping up with Cupra’s latest offerings.
As for the inside, not my cup of tea at all.
Really looks like a concept car, which I know most will love.
Think I’m stuck in the 2000’s which is going to be a problem one day when I have to jump into a new car and work out what to do.
It’s unbelievable how much car interior’s have changed looking at my 21 year old mk1 Leon compared to that.
I’ll be keeping my old fleet for as long as possible but as usual enjoyed reading your review and keeping up with Cupra’s latest offerings.
The inside is designed as snake skin 
. That's the texture. The secret got let out at in a launch video or something. That's why it looks weird. Earth snake. You are in the snake pit when you drive it...
. That's the texture. The secret got let out at in a launch video or something. That's why it looks weird. Earth snake. You are in the snake pit when you drive it...
I'm still old school for still doing reviews as essays and not videos haha I'm not sure I'd be "Work Safe" recording myself on a car journey... Yeah I can imagine things are a little bit out there coming from the MK1 Leon, I thought there was a big difference from the TarracoAs new SUVs go I don’t mind the look of that from the outside. Actually saw one parked up the other day and it looks decent.
As for the inside, not my cup of tea at all.
Really looks like a concept car, which I know most will love.
Think I’m stuck in the 2000’s which is going to be a problem one day when I have to jump into a new car and work out what to do.
It’s unbelievable how much car interior’s have changed looking at my 21 year old mk1 Leon compared to that.
I’ll be keeping my old fleet for as long as possible but as usual enjoyed reading your review and keeping up with Cupra’s latest offerings.
. It's going to be hard for modern cars to look as good as the older generations looking back at them, I remember my friend owning a MK1 Leon Cupra in like a Bronze colour (I think), it had all the goodies and that 1.8T was awesome lol On the other hand I like new shiny things!
Well how about that.The inside is designed as snake skin
View attachment 47990
Similar threads
