Just how much of a difference does running the climate control make to an electric car's range? 🤔 We've been finding out with the help of our long-term Cupra Born:
I put that to the test at the weekend, on a 140-mile round-trip from London to Colchester. I’d be setting off with a 78% charge, and the driver display told me that was good for 169 miles in default Comfort driving mode with the climate control in its lowest setting.
Although I knew I could find a public charger if necessary, frankly I had better things to do with my Sunday afternoon. Instead, my plan was to make sure I did the trip with 20 miles of range to spare, then ‘fill up’ the next day. Those numbers made me nervous. A chunk of the journey would be dual-carriageway driving, and I knew I’d see the remaining range drop far more quickly at 70mph than in my usual city driving. And that’s where it got interesting. You see, when I switched the car to Eco driving mode – which you might expect to do wonders for range – it added a meagre one mile to the displayed figure. In contrast, switching off the climate control as well bumped it up a reassuring 34 miles, to 203. Long story short, I kept it off, made do with the occasional blast of air to clear the windscreen, and got home with 41 miles remaining. And I should point out that freezing is optional in the top-spec V3 Born because it has a heated steering wheel and seats. Usually, I keep the climate control on, set low, but I rarely tweak the settings because it’s far too fiddly. The only physical controls are weirdly thin red and blue temperature buttons below the infotainment screen, which are invisible in the dark, and a button to the right of the driver display to crank up the vent to clear the windscreen. To do anything else, I need to go into a page on the infotainment screen, with an awkward digitised On/Off toggle. That’s a shame, because it’s a versatile system, with five power levels and six vent ‘zones’ you can switch off and on independently.For all the latest reviews, advice and new car deals, sign up to the What Car? newsletter
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