VW unveils all-electric up! 09 | 09 | 2016
VOLKSWAGEN HAS RELEASED its new all-electric version of the up! … quaintly badged e-up! The four-seater, which starts at £20,780 (including the Government Plug-in Car Grant of £4500), joins the refreshed up! range in the UK. Deliveries are expected to begin next month.
With its 82PS electric motor, the e-up! boasts a peak torque figure of 210Nm, eallowing it to cover the 0-62mph ‘sprint’ in 12.4 seconds. It will continue, where the law permits, to 80mph. The car boasts a maximum range of around 93 miles between charges.
This e-up!’s power derives from a lithium-ion battery pack located within the car’s floor and consisting of 204 cells, together rated at 374 volts and 18.7kWh.
The motor is mated to a single-speed gearbox optimised for minimum friction. VW says the driveline is “particularly quiet and compact as a result of the electric motor and the gearbox being integrated with very high quality intermeshing inside a single housing”.
The battery weighs 230kg but, despite this, the e-up! still weighs less than its internal combustion engined sibling, tipping the scales at 1139kg thanks to Volkswagen engineers’ extensive weight-saving measures.
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The necessary variety of charging cables includes a fast-charge connection which allows for up to 80% of the battery’s capacity to be replenished in just 30 minutes. Meanwhile, a full charge from a standard household plug takes nine hours.
Customers can purchase an optional wall box for home garage use, which provides a 3.6kW supply and can recharge a battery in six hours.
The strong line-up of factory-fitted equipment includes electronic air conditioning as standard, as well as cruise control and parking sensors. The windscreen wipers function automatically, as do the headlights.
The new e-up! is available as a five-door, and fresh styling includes beefier front bumpers which house unique ‘C’ signature LED running lights.
At the rear, a more angular bumper includes a prominent diffuser panel alongside a sharper tail light design.
The interior of the new e-up! features a leather-trimmed steering wheel, while chrome-trimmed interior door handles, air vent surrounds and instruments add a finishing flourish.
The new e-up!, like the new up!, features an innovative smartphone docking station which enables the driver’s phone to be turned into the car’s infotainment system. By simply clicking the smartphone into the ‘Maps + More’ docking system on the centre console, it unlocks a host of features via the Volkswagen app.
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The smartphone can be used to select and play music, or as a navigation system. It can even display key data from the e-up!’s systems and tips from the Volkswagen Think Blue. Trainer, which coaches a driver in efficient driving techniques.
The smartphone connection is extended in the new e-up! thanks to Volkswagen’s Car-Net e-remote. This gives the driver the power to manage the car’s charging process from their smartphone via the e-up! app. They can also use the app to switch on their e-up!’s air conditioning remotely before getting in and review vehicle trip statistics, too. A three-year subscription to the Car-Net e-remote service is included with the new e-up!.
The new e-up! comes with a standard three-year warranty, and the vehicle’s battery comes with an eight-year, 100,000-mile warranty. The standard service interval is 20,000 miles or two years.
Currently, the e-up! is available from £275* per month via Volkswagen’s e-Solutions Personal Contract Purchase (PCP) scheme, with a £900 deposit contribution. The deal is based on 6.4% APR representative, with full details available from Volkswagen Retailers.
The e-up! joins the all-electric e-Golf in Volkswagen’s line-up of plug-in cars. The range also includes the award-winning petrol-electric hybrid Golf GTE and Passat GTE models.
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Jim McGill