VW e-up!

The VW e-up! is a stylish, compact city car

VW e-up! Review

First of all, the VW e-up! has a silly name and yes it does have an exclamation mark at the end!

So we don’t get ourselves tied up in grammatical knots, let’s call this compact Volkswagen electric car the ‘VW e-up’, without the exclamation mark. We could call it in the ‘VW eup’ to simplify even more, but that looks even more weird.

The VW e-up was designed from scratch to be either an electric car or a petrol car. This means no compromises have been made in the EV version. Let’s find out more about Volkswagen’s e-up electric car, the little brother to the larger ID.3 and e-Golf.

VW e-up Range

The VW e-up now has a larger 36.8 kWh battery, giving it a real-world range of roughly 143 miles.

The old model of the car, dating from 2016, had a much smaller battery and it’s great to see VW taking this cool car to new heights.

The e-up is very much a city car, designed for shorter trips around town. You won’t often do more than 143 miles in a city environment in a day.

What’s the 4-seat, under £30,000 competition doing in terms of real-world range?

• Skoda CITIGOe iV: 146 miles
• Seat Mii electric: 144 miles
• Volkswagen e-up: 143 miles
• Mini Electric: 131 miles
• Honda e: 122 miles
• Smart EQ forfour: 73 miles

You may have noticed the top three cars all have almost identical range. That’s because they are all VW Group cars and are based on the same EV platform.

Who is the VW e-up for?

This VW e-up electric car is front-wheel drive, has 5 doors and 4 seats.

It comes with a 60 kW electric motor, providing 82 bhp. The e-up’s top speed is 81 mph, and it goes from 0 to 62 mph in 11.9 seconds.

This electric vehicle is ideal for city dwellers. It’s easy to park, nippy, and – with zero emissions – will always be accepted by councils in city and town centres.

Actually, there is no reason why you couldn’t also own this car if you lived in a village. As long as you don’t regularly need to go on trips further than 143 miles, the VW e-up is fine.

With its compact size, the e-up is clearly not a main family car, but could be a second car. It might be a way of moving into the electric car world when your current small car needs replacing.

Can the Volkswagen e-up be a commuter car? Yes if your drive to work isn’t too far. If your budget can stretch a little further, the 4-seater BMW i3 with its better range is an EV to consider for commuters.

• If you would like more information about EVs in general, please see our main Electric Cars page.

• For specific details about the e-up itself, see the main Volkswagen UK e-up website.

• Otherwise, please scroll down to the Reviews section below for independent analyses.