While you can’t buy it just yet, the 2022 Cupra Born – the Spanish performance brand’s first all-electric vehicle – has arrived in Australia to commence local road testing.

Three examples of the hatchback were air-freighted to Australia late last year for validation testing in regional New South Wales. A small team of engineers will clock up an estimated 10,000 kilometres combined.

Ben Wilks, Cupra Australia Director told Drive that the Born was being tested locally out of an abundance of caution and was a normal part of the pre-launch checklist.

“We are testing all operational aspects of the car: all the driver assistance systems, the information systems, to make sure that we’ve got a comprehensive overview of how that car operates,” said Mr Wilks.

“We’ll test until we’ve ticked all the boxes that we want to tick from an engineering point of view.”

“The engineers that are driving will be Australians, and obviously there’s data logging that’s going back to our team in Spain.”

Pending the outcome of these tests, Cupra aims to introduce the Born into the market at the end of 2022, following the brand’s launch in mid-2022. Pricing is yet to be confirmed but is expected to be in a similar range to that of the Volkswagen Golf.

Read more about the Cupra Born HERE.

Source: Drive | Cupra Born electric car starts Australian tests ahead of showroom arrivals this year.

14 January 2022