Volkswagen e-Up 2020 UK first drive

The e-Up is the top-of-the-range, all-electric version of the Volkswagen Up. It has just been updated for the 2020 model year and we’ve tried one on UK roads and in right-hand-drive form.

The headlines here are a range boost and a price cut. A new kind of drive battery, made up of pouch cells instead of box-section prismatic ones, has increased usable battery capacity significantly and has effectively doubled the car’s claimed range, which is now 159 miles. 

At the same time, almost £2000 has been cut from the car’s price, allowing it to fall to within a whisker of £20,000. Which is still plenty for a city car, of course, but it’s significantly less than Renault charges for the cheapest Renault Zoe.

The new battery has added 15kg to the e-Up’s kerb weight but the car’s mechanical package is otherwise unchanged, as are its other performance stats. Even weighing 200-and-something kilograms more than any of its range-mates, it’s a pleasingly nippy drive and its handling isn’t as penalised by that kerb weight as other small EVs seem to be.

On the inside, the car differs from other Ups with its special analogue instrument pack. There’s a big central speedo flanked by simple, readable dials that tell you how much battery charge is remaining and how hard you’re working the motor. All it really lacks is an equally clear estimate of remaining range, although you can conjure one of those up onto the digital trip computer screen.  

The car benefits from Volkswagen’s updates to the wider Up range, so it now has a pretty basic camera-based lane-keeping assist system and curtain airbags as well as front and side ones. As city car interiors go, it’s certainly smart and pleasant and reasonably spacious up front; perhaps a bit less spacious, compared with the most practical city cars, in the back. This tester would have rather the car had conventional front seats with adjustable head restraints than seat squabs with ‘integrated’, non-adjustable head restraints.

The car offers you five primary drive settings, as well as three broader drive modes - and while it could make it easier to ramp up and down battery regeneration settings through the fitment of steering wheel paddles, there would at least probably be less to be gained in terms of energy efficiency than for drivability if it did.

Engaging ‘D’ on the transmission puts you in the default driving setting, and from there you can adjust battery regen settings (D1, D2, D3) by flicking the shift lever left and right. Pull it backwards and you engage ‘B’ mode, in which you get maximum regen when you lift off the accelerator pedal, allowing you, for the most part, to drive the car in ‘one-pedal’ style.