2025 Cupra Tavascan Endurance review

The 2025 Cupra Tavascan medium SUV promises to deliver engaging dynamics, with room for young families in a smooth and silent electric car package.

Blending swoopy hatchback-like styling, a dramatic interior, and a touch of practicality, the Tavascan arrives as a rival to cars like the Tesla Model Y and BYD Sealion 7.

European branding, and the legacy of entertaining driver's cars that go with it, help the Cupra Tavascan stand apart from a growing field of Chinese and Korean rivals. In this case though the Spanish Cupra brand builds the Tavascan in China to help keep pricing competitive. 

But where value is often the driver for new brands entering the market, Cupra’s prestige positioning, as part of the Volkswagen Group, could be a sticking point for owners looking to take a punt on a new brand.  

An electric vehicle platform shared with Volkswagen, Skoda, and Audi offers a solid start, but is Cupra’s promise of exciting dynamics enough to separate the Tavascan from the pack?

The 2025 Cupra Tavascan is available in two variants. The entry-level Tavascan Endurance tested here starts from $60,990 plus on-road costs.

It comes with a single 210kW motor, rear wheel drive, and a 77kWh useable battery capacity, allowing up to 534km of range according to WLTP testing.

Features like 19-inch alloy wheels, LED head and tail lights, fabric and faux-leather upholstery, three-zone climate control, a 15-inch infotainment system, and wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are standard.

A more potent Tavascan VZ with power boosted to 250kW via two electric motors with all-wheel drive is also available, priced from $74,490 before on-road costs.

It keeps the same battery pack and drops range slightly to 499km, but picks up matrix LED headlights, 21-inch alloy wheels, a panoramic glass roof with electric blind and more, to go with the performance boost.

Buyers looking to bridge the equipment gap can option the Tavascan Endurance with an interior package that adds features also found on the VZ, like 360-degree cameras, heated front seats trimmed in microfibre with electric adjustment, additional interior ambient lighting, illuminated scuff plates, and a 12-speaker Sennheiser sound system. The pack also adds 20-inch alloy wheels – but wasn't fitted to the car tested here.

The Cupra Tavascan Endurance is undercut by rivals like the Tesla Model Y RWD ($58,900), BYD Sealion 7 Premium ($54,990), XPeng G6 Standard range ($54,800) and Kia EV5 Air FWD ($56,770), all before on-road costs.

On the other hand, the Tavascan undercuts the Hyundai Ioniq 5 ($69,800), Toyota bZ4X 2WD ($66,000), and Kia EV6 Air ($72,590).

Cupra hasn’t come to market with special offers for the Tavascan just yet, but as a new model the brand may roll out deals, discounts of finance offers over time.

Alongside Australia’s most popular EV SUV, the Tesla Model Y, the Tavascan is rather compact, at 148mm shorter, 27mm lower, 121mm narrower, with a 124mm shorter wheelbase.

The interior design is definitely confronting. The dash, with its prominent centre spine and organic gills, feels awkward and a bit invasive.

When you’re sitting up front, it’s obvious Cupra could have either freed up more passenger space or added more control buttons, but instead did neither.

The console is narrow, the cup holders are limited in what they can hold, and despite a pass-through between the seats, it’s carpeted and can’t hold anything securely, letting objects slide around.

The glovebox is tiny, and the door bins aren’t shaped well to hold bottles. They also lack the soft lining found in other Volkswagen products.

The shapely front seats feel like they wrap around you as you nestle in, with broad bolstering on the seat back. The front seats are set very low, which offers a sporty feel for the driver, but can feel a bit enclosed for shorter occupants.

For me, at 169cm tall, I found the steering wheel position very high, even with the wheel lowered and seat raised. All controls are manual too, though electric seats are included with the optional interior package.

Rear seats are comfy across the board, but a small rear door aperture is likely to make loading little ones into child seats a bit tricky. Rear seat passengers get their own temperature controls and ventilation through the console, plus two USB-C ports, and a fold-down armrest with cup holders.

Open the powered tailgate, and at first glance, the boot looks large, and is, with 540 litres available with the rear seats up. It compares to the 500L of a BYD Sealion 7 or 513L of a Kia EV5.

Tesla claims a massive 938L, but also uses a different measurement standard that’s more generous.

Under the boot floor is a compact storage space, suitable for a travel charger, but there’s no additional storage under the bonnet. The boot is equipped with bag hooks and loads of tie-down points, but not much else.

The interior package option adds a dual-layer boot floor (standard on the high-spec Tavascan VZ), but the unoptioned base model misses out.

The 15-inch infotainment screen in the Tavascan looks bright and clear, but the native dark grey and copper colour scheme Cupra uses makes it look dated and gives it a slightly Windows Media Player vibe.

The tech within is up to date, at least, with wireless access to Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, FM and DAB radio (but no AM), and Bluetooth connectivity and audio streaming. A little surprisingly, there’s no integrated navigation.

While that’s less of a problem with access to smartphone maps, some brands include range remaining estimates and suggest charging stops along the way, while the Tavascan leave you to work those things out for yourself.

 The Volkswagen Group has introduced much cleaner, more intuitive software solutions on cars like the ID.5 and Enyaq, but the Cupra still feels a bit clumsy in its execution, despite a similar layout to menus and folders.

As you’d expect of a modern vehicle, climate controls are also part of the infotainment experience, rather than physical buttons, with touch sliders for temp and volume outside of the main screen, and still as fiddly touch controls.

Cupra uses capacitive touch panels with haptic feedback on the steering wheel too. These work some of the time, but are easy to miscue, and often object to being pressed and held, or multiple quick taps.

You can scroll as well as tap, to crank up the volume or make 10km/h cruise control adjustments, but the success rate is often patchy, leading to a frustrating experience.

To be fair, Cupra’s parent company has seen the error of its ways with systems like this, and is moving back to physical buttons. The Cupra has missed out though.

The driver has a small 5.3-inch display that offers speed, battery, and range info. It’s not detailed, but it's simple and is really all you need for critical vehicle info.

The Tavascan also gets by without a head-up display and connected services that can connect that car to your smartphone.

The Cupra Tavascan missed out on a full five-star safety rating from ANCAP, with a four-star result based largely on the performance of its safety assist systems.

The testing, carried out by Euro NCAP in 2024, resulted in an 89 per cent adult occupant protection rating, an 87 per cent child occupant protection rating, 80 per cent for vulnerable road users (pedestrians and cyclists) and 67 per cent for safety systems – below the 70 per cent threshold required for a five-star score.

ANCAP flagged a lack of reverse autonomous emergency braking, speed sign recognition and related intelligent cruise control, and camera-based driver monitoring systems as areas where the Tavascan was marked down.

This rating differs from the European version of the Tavascan, which carries a five-star result and includes speed sign monitoring not fitted in Australia. 

As mentioned above, some of he safety systems in the Tavascan aren’t up to the standards of those required for a five-star rating, but the systems included felt like they worked well.

The adaptive cruise control is responsive to changing traffic, the lane assist tech keeps you within your lane without being overbearing about it, and the ability to adjust the sensitivity of settings is helpful in getting the car to behave as you’d like it to.

Not having speed sign recognition feels like the biggest miss when so many other, more affordable cars come with the tech.

The driver fatigue detection system is also a little old-fashioned. It's based on driver behaviour rather than a driver-facing camera, so can interpret actions like multiple presses of the steering wheel controls or infotainment as ‘fatigue’ even if you're looking ahead and in full control.

All models in Cupra’s line-up come with a five-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty for private buyers, and the EV battery is covered for a period of eight years or 160,000km.

Five years of roadside assist is also provided and includes provision for callouts, towing, emergency accommodation, or car rental to keep you on the road if required.

Cupra offers either six- or 10-year prepaid service packs on the Tavascan range, with service intervals every 24 months or 30,000km, whichever comes first. The six-year package is priced at $1310 while 10 years costs $2190.

Kia offers prepaid service plans for the EV5, but in three, five, or seven-year blocks. A five-year plan is priced at $1535, while the seven-year plan will cost $2431. The Tesla Model Y has no fixed service schedule – wear items are replaced on an as-needed basis.

Insurance costs for 12 months of comprehensive cover come to $2686 for the Cupra Tavascan Endurance, making it cheaper than the $3261 quote issued for a Tesla Model Y Rear-Wheel Drive, but more expensive than the BYD Sealion 7 Premium’s $2251 premium.

In each case, quotes are gathered for a 35-year-old male, living in Chatswood, NSW. Insurance estimates may vary based on your location, driving history, and personal circumstances.

Cupra’s claimed WLTP range is 534km, drawing from a battery with a listed 77kWh useable capacity, and 82kWh gross storage.

Energy consumption is listed at 16.3kWh per 100km, but our time with the Tavascan saw consumption sit higher at 17.6kWh/100km.

With the indicated energy consumption, the Tavascan Endurance has a theoretical range of 437km, against the generous 534km claim. It’s also worth pointing out that range and consumption figures do not align; at the claimed 16.3kWh usage, range would be closer to 472km.

The Tavascan uses nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) battery chemistry, meaning regular charging to 80 per cent is recommended to prolong battery life. Based on the recorded consumption, driving range drops to 350km.

The Tavascan is capable if charging at up to 11kW on an AC charger, with a maximum DC fast charging rate of 135kW. From experience, without first preconditioning the battery (via the infotainment system) DC speeds will start closer to 80kW initially before ramping up.

Despite Cupra’s positioning as a performance car brand, the Tavascan falls a little short dynamically.

The 210kW single motor powertrain is swift, but rarely feels like it lives up to its full potential. Drive modes make a big difference here.

With Eco, Comfort, Performance and Cupra modes, the Tavascan lets you pick the drive experience that best suits your road conditions. Comfort and Performance feel very closely matched, and don’t offer a big difference in how the car responds.

Opt for the Cupra mode, which gets its own standalone shortcut button on the steering wheel, and the Tavascan moves from gentle starts and tight stability control calibration, to shocking the electric motor to life, and letting the rear wheels spin a little more freely.

Cupra mode unlocks sharper standing acceleration, more responsive rolling response, and allows for a power oversteer out of corners without getting out of hand.

Still, even in its quickest mode, the Tavascan Endurance always feels a little reserved and never quite like a performance car. For that, the more powerful, all-wheel-drive Tavascan VZ would be the better choice.

One of the things that dulls the sporting potential of the Tavascan down is its surprisingly floaty ride. Cross a savage pothole or bug bump in the road, and the Tavascan almost floats over before gently settling down.

It’s a fantastic match for jiggly and busy rural highways. While it can’t flatten them out completely, it’s one of the Volkswagen Group’s more forgiving cars when it comes to ride quality. 

Suspension is passive on the Endurance, with adaptive damping reserved for the Tavascan VZ.

The brakes also fall short of expectations. The Tavascan has a very soft brake pedal, and at first it can feel alarmingly light.

In reality, the longest part of brake pedal travel triggers electric regen to slow you down, beyond a certain point the friction brakes take over, but as they do, the car clumsily lurches forward as the brakes grab.

It’s an uncomfortable and uncertain feeling at times, with this handover managed in a much more progressive way by rivals. Interestingly, the Tavascan also features rear drum brakes, rather than four-wheel disc brakes as found on rivals.

When it comes to EV-driving specifics, the Cupra offers three-step regenerative braking adjustment via the steering wheel paddle, plus a ‘B mode’ via the gear selector that switches to stronger regenerative braking when you lift off the accelerator.

The Tavascan goes without a one-pedal drive mode, but the B mode comes close, only requiring the driver to take over braking from below 15-20km/h. Using B mode also helps smooth the clumsy physical braking transition a little, but not entirely.

The Tavascan’s refinement deserves a mention too, with very impressive management of wind and tyre noise, making it calm and quiet at all speeds across a variety of road surfaces.

The Cupra Tavascan Endurance has a modest 1000kg braked towing capacity. It’s enough to cater for a jet ski or golf cart and trailer, but might fall short for anything more. Unbraked towing is rated at 750kg, and the maximum ball weight is 75kg.

That Tavascan has a 462kg payload to account for passengers, cargo, and the tow ball weight, which might start to run thin if you plan on fully loading the vehicle up.

The Tavascan VZ offers a slightly better 1200kg braked towing capacity if that’s a priority for you, but the Tesla Model Y offers a more medium-SUV-typical 1588kg capacity – more like what you’d get on an internal combustion car of similar size.

The Tavascan feels a little like a car without a clear direction. Cupra’s sports car brand positioning doesn’t translate to the Tavascan Endurance.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, rathe than a stiff, hyper-alert hotch hatch in SUV clothes, the Tavascan is more of what a medium SUV probably should be: Relaxed, comfortable, and quiet.

Some of the packaging decisions might take some getting used to, like the oddly configured centre console and the small rear door openings. Most of what the Tavascan Endurance delivers though, makes for a pleasant experience.

It’s not one that’ll get your heart racing, but possibly one that can pull your resting heart rate down – something we could probably all do with from time to time.

Kez Casey migrated from behind spare parts counters to writing about cars over ten years ago. Raised by a family of automotive workers, Kez grew up in workshops and panel shops before making the switch to reviews and road tests for The Motor Report, Drive and CarAdvice.

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