VerdictIf you’re nervous of making the leap to an EV, the Lexus hybrid system is a great way to see if it will work for you – and in an SUV package that gets a lot of what matters right. Mileage: 6,489Economy: 70mpgSometimes things just go right, and that’s what happened with the arrival of the Lexus and my test of a home EV charger.In fact, the timing could hardly have been better. The plug-in hybrid Lexus got to me before the wallbox, so I could try the car running purely on unleaded, then being charged by a standard home socket, before plugging in the full-monty power source.The question now, as the NX 450h+ leaves us after six months on the fleet, is whether the charger will become just a bit of automotive wall art, or will I be looking for something to plug into it?Six months was easily enough to sell me on the idea of a plug-in hybrid. I saw the claimed 40-plus miles on battery power throughout the test, although I left the Lexus on the drive in the cold snap because I had access to a car with all-season tyres and the snow never left my neighbourhood.That range was enough both for regular shopping trips around where I live and for longer joueys, when I used the useful Hold Charge mode for the motorway stretches, switching back to battery power for the slower sections. In normal driving on A and B-roads, the pure-electric performance was scarcely different from petrol, making for near-silent, cost-effective progress.More reviews Car group testsIn-depth reviewsRoad برچسبها :
VerdictInstead of highlighting how the VW Group is now a software-led company, the Bo is doing rather too good a job of demonstrating that Cupra can make cars, but struggles to get the ones and zeros in the code of its infotainment set-up properly aligned. This vehicle’s biggest flaws are all in the digital realm.Mileage: 5,311Efficiency: 3.3 miles/kWhWe need to talk about infotainment. Ever since the arrival of the Mk8 Golf, the VW Group’s take on that big screen in the dashboard has been under fire.So while I was looking forward to our Cupra Bo’s arrival, it was with some trepidation that I started delving into what its infotainment system does well, and where it falls short. I’d been prepared for a bit of faffing to get my phone hooked up, I knew that the slider control would be fiddly to use, and I wasn’t expecting a great deal from the in-house navigation. What has caught me by surprise, though, is how some of the basic vehicular functions just don’t quite work how they should. As an example, the Bo is supposed to offer geo-tagged charging routines – allowing me, in theory, to save my driveway as a location and then tell the vehicle to only charge between certain hours when it’s parked there. It could make a big difference to my bills, given that I use Octopus’s EV-specific tariff with four hours of off-peak rates in the middle of the night.More reviews Car group testsIn-depth reviewsRoad testsTrouble is, the Cupra just ignores its own advice. I برچسبها :