Bjorn Nyland Gives Us The Lowdown On The VW e-Up!

Is the VW e-up! still worth buying more than 5 years after its introduction?

While the next-generation Volkswagen e-up! with a price tag of $21,000 (€18,000) is still just a rumor, Bjorn Nyland recently tested the actual e-up!

The e-up! is the smallest all-electric Volkswagen, available in Europe since 2013 without any upgrades to its 18.7 kWh battery (without active cooling) and 60 kW electric motor. It’s a cool city EV with a range of up to around 160 km (100 miles) under NEDC testing.

Bjorn’s tests revealed that depending on driving mode and driving profile, winter range will be as follows:

• 100 km (62 mi) and 15.6 kWh/100 km at 90 km/h
• 75 km (47 mi) and 20.6 kWh/100 km at 120 km/h (highway)
• probably over 150 km (93 miles) and 9.7 kWh/100 km at 40 km/h in the city

Usable battery capacity seems to be 15.6 kWh (although maybe in summer conditions it could be 16.5 kWh as other drivers report). The DC fast charging is around 35 kW, which is not that much, but it’s achievable in a wide range of state of charge (almost up to the full charge).

The major general drawback seems to be cheap materials and hard plastics all over the place, which simply doesn’t matchthe price (€22,975 in Germany) – way above the price of the conventional up!.

The small size of the e-up! makes it tight, especially in the rear.

On the other hand, the small trunk is deep enough to pass the Bjorn’s banana boxes test with a score equal to the BMW i3. Both cars were able to store 4 boxes in the trunk and 14 with seats folded.

.embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }