UK: New Volkswagen e-Up to cost from £19,695
The new version of the Volkswagen e-Up is now on sale in the UK with a bigger battery and a starting price of £19,695, including the £3500 plug-in car grant.
Volkswagen revealed the new e-Up at the IAA in Frankfurt last year. The new model of VW’s electric city car swaps the original EV’s 18.7kWh battery for a larger 32.3kWh version. New battery cells enable the longer range and VW guarantees the battery for eight years or 160,000 kilometres.
The carmaker claims the upgraded battery is capable of charging at 40kW, taking an hour to charge to 80 per cent, just as with the old version. The range is given at 159 miles (255 km) in WLTP figures, up from the previous 83 miles. Since the e-Up shares the technology with the already introduced sister models Skoda Citigo e iV and Seat Mii electric, the e-Up too takes over their 7.2 kW onboard chargers (instead of the previous 3.6 kW).
The power of the electric motor remains at 61 kW and the top speed also remains the same at 81 mph (130 kph). Nevertheless, VW assumes that the sales volume will “increase significantly”. How this will figure in the UK remains vague. Tim O’Donovan, EV Product Marketing Manager at Volkswagen UK, said: “We are very pleased to have secured limited stock in the UK”.
Standard features include heated front seats and windscreen, climate control, automatic windscreen wipers and electrically-heated wing mirrors. Different from the old e-Up, the new version also comes with special 15-inch wheels, and bespoke bumpers and running lights.
The £19,965 price compares to the £19,300 starting price of the Seat e-Mii and £16,955 cost of the Skoda Citigo-e iV. It is substantially cheaper than the £24,625 list price of the last-gen VW e-Up electric car.
The small model also forbodes the ID.3’s arrival on British shores this summer, which will be the first electric car based on the MEB platform to go on sale in the UK. Volkswagen said the First Edition will be available to 40,000 pre-orderers throughout Europe from summer (if they make a binding order from their reservation). Deliveries of the series versions with 58 kWh and 45 kWh batteries will start in September and October respectively as reported.
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