8:45 Here in Germany there was a brief moment in early 2020 (iirc) where you could profit off of three (!) different subsidising programs at the same time. 2 friends of mine acutally applied and got all accepted to all three of them. They each got a 2 year lease on a 33 kWh e-UP for 100€/month with insurance and they got paid 6800€ over the 2 years in incentives. They both earned money while driving an e-UP. Another point I think worth mentioning regarding the e-UP: VW uses the e-UP sales figures to fine tune their fleet emissions to just barely meet every time. So if the fleet emissions are too high, expect VW to flood some e-UPs on the market. If they are below penalty threshold, expect none to be sold
I think they all do that. Legislation is dated and needs changed. There needs to be a requirement to make a certain number of low priced electric cars to encourage adoption cause some firms have no emissions at all like Tesla. Where is the Tesla model 1 or 2 ? The 3 is quite a big and expensive car, less would do. The other loophole is expensive hybrid versions where it is difficult to prove the real emissions of the car as it's down to how and where the car is used an issue similar to dieselgate.
Also a German here, i didn't know that, interesting. This might also explain why around early/mid 2020 i kept seeing more nad more e-UP on the Autobahn and in Cities, now i still see them a lot, but not more and more. I also had no idea they aren't sold anymore? Is this just a thing in the UK or here in Germany as well?
The e-up is the new Mini. I ordered two of them in 2019 and got them in 2021. I payed 10.500€ each. In the city you can not find a better car. It´s so much fun to drive them.
man wtf. Check up the price of one in Bulgaria. EU literally don't let us to get them cheaper because someone has to drive all the second hand junk cars from Germany and Italy :D . Guess we will get affordable EVs in 2050
@@AutumnWind92 Under 20k EUR before gov incentives, which I believe is around 5k EUR in Bulgaria. That being said ordering one has been a totally different story.
Only if you have a driveway or access to power where the car is parked. The electricity at the charge points is too expensive. Yes with the new price hike diesel isn't much cheaper but they are still hugely cheaper to buy
@iNSTAGiB Having done a lot of motorway miles in my old Citigo, I respectfully disagree! It was good for such a small car, but the lack of sound deadening really makes a difference when you sit there for a long time, always felt a little rattled stepping out of the car when I was on the motorway for more than an hour. Definitely better than my mates' C1s, Aygos and others in the class, though.
Disagree, I have one and you would be shocked at the comfort and how much you can fit in them. I’m 6’2 and a full adult can sit behind me (5door) - that’s bloody amazing! And we can fit a full family shop in the boot without going above the lip. And a German shepherd can fit comfortably in the back. And the cruise and refinement is fine for motorways. Really.. what more could you want or need? I only have a second car because I frequently have to do 700 mile round trips for work and I couldn’t afford having to split that up into three or four with hours of recharging. But otherwise … how many people have to do any more than 100 miles a day on the regular. That would be 32000 miles a year. The average is 8-12k per year i.e. something closer to 40 miles a day. This could go 4 days without recharging at that mileage.
The e-up is a lot more refined than the older petrol versions and certainly the Skoda versions, there is obviously no engine noise and because of the premium price point for the size of car, they’ve put a lot of sound deadening in it.
The false floor in the boot means that it's easier to remove shopping etc as the base is not so low down. For this car, it's an excellent place to conceal the charging cables.
Also this is just a carry over from the ice Up in response to new car reviewers complaining that "There's quite a boot lip to lift suit cases over". So blame weedy car reviewers.
And the boot is exactly the same size as on a petrol up. The false floor is there to get you a somewhat even floor if you decide to fold the rear seats if you transport something bulky. Also, the electric cable can be fitted into a hole near the rear bumper inside the boot, it does not have to take up all that space. Actually you can fit even something else there beside the cable, like an first aid kit.
I think it's there due to the fact the car was designed as a rear-engined RWD car like the Smart For Two/Four, but got changed to front-engined FWD at quite a late stage
I started leasing one of these 3 weeks ago and love it. Three of my friends/family have been so impressed they have looked into getting one similar to mine, only to find they can't get one. Lucky timing for me and goes well with my Passat R Line Edition which covers the longer journeys!
Nailed it there James. I don’t understand these massive, heavy, expensive electric cars with 0-60 in under 4 seconds. Surely the average punter doing their daily commute needs nothing of the sort.
We've found an eUp! can regularly beat BMW and Audi drivers away from the lights and corner just as well at legal speeds on country roads - but then we have less mass in the driver's seat taxing the small drive motor :)
Given the miles we do and the kind of journeys, this is very much the car we "SHOULD" have as our second car. Thing is, even as an above average income household 20k on a second car is beyond the pale so the "CAN" bit is somewhat out the window...
We got ours on an extremely cheap monthly lease deal back in September 2021. Like two decent mobile phone bills per month cheap. Never had a car as cheap and it’s a brilliant little car, we use ours for everything, except my 700 mile round trips for work, including carrying a German shepherd (in comfort!) in the back. I’m sad to hear that they aren’t making them available any more, they are pricing people out of the correct size of electric car imo
The review is on point. It seems that especially with the State incentives the car was selling to good. Especially during supply chain troubled times. So they cut it off to not cannibalize the ID3 Sales. I guess for a lot of people that car would be just enough and that is of coarse not good for the more expensive cars in the line-up.
I remember having a Dolomite Sprint when I was 20, running out of money and swapping it for an Imp. Your 20 year old friend is my spiritual successor. Oh and great points,
My optician, with whom I started sharing car stories for some reason years ago, just sold his two-year-old e-Up for more than he originally paid for it. Glorious times.
Chronic rust issues on the pre 2017 models and any other models without rear wheel arch liners around the fuel filler. The only good Ups are post facelift high spec models and they just cost too much.
I had an early first gen. BMW i3 BEV in almost the lowest spec (though with things that should have been default like fast charging & a heat pump) when the second hand market thought car batteries would die after a couple of years. It was a second car just for short trips and the total ownership cost per km was totally offset by not using the big car, which could do those long journeys fully laden, for those short trips. Hence it was effectively a 'free' second car and was a much better fit for those trips than the bigger car. If I wanted to buy the same car - a Dec 2013 model - now it would cost close to what I paid for it in early 2015.
@gerhard goedhart What a coincidence Gerhard. I traded mine in as I was moving to a ski resort and decided I needed AWD. So I went for a 340i xDrive Touring (with the m-sport sound & power pack). I honesty preferred the i3 to the 340. I'm now in an Alpina B5 Touring for long journey stuff and a mint 2005 Mini Cooper S for the shorter stuff (95% of journeys). At some stage I'll get another i3 as its one of the cars I most enjoyed owning. My point on the i3 - just like the reviewed eUp - is that as a second car a small, limited range EV makes absolute sense for most people and if you look at total ownership costs adding one to your garage might not be as expensive as initially they seem.
I considered one of these e Up! cars for my wife a few months ago but opted for the GTI instead because of the price difference and the GTI is a much more funkier car and she the lady simply loves it
Little electric are great as part of a collection - my Green/Black 67 plate Smart 4/2 electric was £9600 and does 72 miles (enough for local visits), turns on a croissant 🥐 and costs £3-4 a charge and I park it head on in town !
I fully agree with you. Small E Cars make sense when commuting and if employers were providing free charging during the day when you work in the office then you’d never run out of power. I never understood how driving a 3t e-suv on the road is supposed to be greener than a modern efficient diesel car. I am considering to buy a smaller e car to help us commute and do the shopping. For longer distance there are planes, trains and rent a car S class.
As an EV owner, this is the best small EV car on sale. I own the petrol Up and it’s excellent. The e-Up is even better. Smooth,quiet and punchy. The efficiency is excellent. Much better than the £10k more expensive Honda-e which I am sure has been a sales flop, as hardly seen any in the real world.
The Honda E is 10k more car than the extremely aged Up. The Up doesn't even have a screen in it and has none of the new safety stuff and it is also dated in every other way other than driving dynamics... and it still drives much worse than the petrol facelift Up.
My use case for a small car on the one hand is local runabout and backup for our VW Touran family bus, on the other hand I do solo weekly return journeys of 150 miles each way, often at dusk / night at the national / motorway speed limit - I need something quiet, comfortable and relatively roomy for transporting things - and of course it needs to be very cheap to run. I have a 2004 Audi A2 1.4 TDI with a six speed gearbox I put in it from a later car. £30 road tax, 60-65mpg due to being made of aluminium and qualifies for cheaper classic car insurance. It has heated leather seats, it has isofix for my kids, I can stream music to its (Bose) stereo from my phone, I have an engine block heater installed so instant heat in the winter and it’s so simple that I do my own maintenance (but if I wasn’t so inclined my local garage would at low cost). It cost me £3k to buy, it’s very refined to drive with good safety equipment and brakes and has been totally reliable. Until someone makes a small car that can surpass all this in every way and cost me similar overall over a projected life of say 10 years, I’m sticking with what I have - but I would make the switch if such an option existed. I guess you have to want to drive a new / nearly new car and be willing to pay significantly for that privilege- whereas in my case I’m happy to go with an older car that fits the brief and keep it immaculate / keep on top of maintenance and cosmetic flaws to keep it looking and feeling fresh. I humbly submit that this is better for the environment that the total life impact of making a new electric car.
@@ihavenousername1805 I would suggest you consider the maintenance cost VAG group cars have, mine had shocking bills, turbo/injectors/fuelpump/timingchain etc, these issues go away with electric car, then the tax cost, insurance cost and fuel is rapidly approaching 50 a litre more and who knows where it will end up ? 2 pound a litre this year probably.
@@jondonnelly3 I know how ridiculously overpriced VAG stuff is to buy and run from experience. I just don't understand how going from one overpriced VAG shitter to another one would save any money?
@@ihavenousername1805 I own a 2016 Audi A6 Allroad (with the said 3L V6 diesel engine) - and I can tell you the car is a maintenance nightmare. Just dropped £4.8K on the timing chain and some other failed bits. So it's more than just the 40p fuel surplus that you have to take into account. However, how many years could you run and how many miles could you put through a 1.5L dci Renault Clio for £20K? To me, the Clio would be the first choice.
@@peterbratu Yeah, before I sold my RS5 at the start of the year, it needed new front discs and pads, a caliper, two rear tyres, and a cat converter in the space of a month. Nearly crippled me lol. My point was, how is spending nearly £25 grand on a small hatchback going to benefit you financially?
I've got the Seat version. Holds it's own on the motorway and not much gets to 30mph quicker. A 5 hour overnight charge once a week gives me 165 miles of range. This is what EV's need to be, not £50k+ rocket ships with 0-60 times under 3 seconds.
I don't think smaller cars are the real answer to city overcrowding. I've just spent five days travelling around The Netherlands and it's clear that the answer is walking, bicycles and public transport in the form of trains, trams and buses. Travelling to and around Dutch cities is ridiculously easy, more convenient and way faster than driving. The Dutch got it right years ago, time for us to catch up!
@@thecraigmachine69 you mean we don't need people driving on their own in their full size 2.5 tonne range rovers to the shops and back? How else will they ensure they have as much environment impact on the world as they possibly can?
@@thecraigmachine69 Let them buy those monstrous SUVs, if only there could be a market for normal sized cars anymore. Things that used to be small have turned gigantic and that makes me sad. Because it means I'm stuck in the 90s and early 00s and there are fewer and fewer nice examples around, most have a terrible amount off rust here and as much as I like spending time in the garage. Welding in new body parts ain't on the top of my list I also question how's going to buy those SUVs when they are 10 years + old. Value has to drop to damn bottom
People keep calling them 'city cars' but I can't see what it couldn't do in a rural area, you can easily get to the nearest city/town for bulk shopping, and it's not like you're barelling down unpaved roads. If you do live in a city your answer is mass transit or rentals.
Thanks, you are right, many potential users do not need a huge range, and 0-60 times are a bit irrelevant, anything around 10 secs is fine. But range and accelaration times are what sells, and some people are prepared to pay.
Enjoying the video, it's good to see one... I ordered mine in October 2021 for delivery in February 2022, now told it might come in September but as yet have no build week!
If you have an annual or quarterly long journey it would make sense to have this and hire a larger vehicle/longer range car for those trips. It would take a long time to use up the £10 to £15k saved in purchasing costs plus cheaper insurance and maintenance costs.
In the Netherlands back in the day when you bought a brand new bmw i3 you could get a petrol bmw as a loaner ( no charge ) for 2 weeks a year to do long trips/vacations
I am the lucky owner of a Skoda Citigo petrol, and Skoda eCitigo. Both are brilliant. The petrol car we use for longer journeys, while the electric one takes me anywhere about town. In Summer range is 160 miles (just avoid turning the AC on), in Winter it gives me 110 miles. Many friends with bigger cars ask me whether such a small car isn't a problem going on holiday. That's why I also have a roof box and even a bike rack. I love my little cars and the eCitigo is faster than most at traffic lights. Most people really don't need big cars and for any family with 2 cars, a small electric car is perfect, if you can find one...
@@andrewshchur8515 - hi. For me lots. Performance was amazing . But … In no order of priority Dead lifeless steering Too many “driver aids” Horrendous road noise on the coarse tarmac of Scottish roads. Some reviewers used ear plugs. Poor range (230 miles is per tank) Despite its performance I didn’t find it “fun” to drive. It wasn’t “engaging” for me . I was able to sell it at a significant profit. Given the niggles (for me) it made perfect sense to pass it on. My recent car history was mx5 RF 2l Abarth 595 Competizione Alfa 147 gta Porsche Cayman s I don’t regret changing to the UP GTi - it has character in spades, it is fun, and it brings a smile to my face every time I drive it . But we are all different ……….
@@allansr100 Wow that's the first time hearing about someone not getting on with the Yaris GR, its been getting nothing but rave reviews everywhere.. Still think they over priced for what you get especially in the current climate. But always liked the look of the Up Gti.
Love how nimble small cars are. My first car was a blue 2016 Aygo and I still miss it to this day. Met it's end when a van driver decided to not pay attention to a red light. Could do 50mpg no issue, and the 3 pot sounded quite good for what it was.
50mpg out of a 1.0 68hp Aygo is pathetic. Round town I get 45mpg in my 1.2T 4 pot Toyota Auris and on rural roads 52-52mpg and on the motorway 60mpg all day long. No such thing as a nice sounding 3 pot either they just sound like they're misfiring.
Living in West Yorkshire I believe a 150 mile winter race would be more than enough. As a 2017 i3 owner, so many new EVs are awesome yet completely unaffordable because of a 300+ mile battery which I'd use once a year at most.
Remember a few years ago trying both a petrol UP and a Polo. Really impressed with the UP and the only reason for anyone choosing the Polo would be more interior space. By the looks of it, the eUP is equally impressive. The way people select and own cars has got to change. If you only need those seven seats and massive luggage space for the annual camping holiday, hire something fun for that week. It will be a laugh for everyone and add to the holiday experience. For the rest of the year, run a regular car like a Golf and save yourself many pounds and save the planet. One area that is interesting for future EV ownership is modular batteries. For most of the year 200 miles range is adequate. Can you imagine for your annual holiday to Dorset, hire an extra battery pack for the week to give you 400 miles range.
that misses one big thing about car ownership, freedom having a small car that can"t get far from your home may fit how you use it regularly, but it also kills opportunities to spontaneously break the routine, or even emergency travel. if every extraordinary trip requires the hassle and extra money on renting a car that fits the occasion, and binds you to a set agreement with a rental company, and instead of being able to work together with friends on moves or other projects everyone has to hire and wait for a company themselves, much of what makes life worthwhile just won"t happen
That modular battery pack sounds tedious, perhaps practical, but easy thing to screw up by the company whos going to install that modular battery fort that Dorset holiday
@UCuYNVExIl9JE7KjHdNLaNGg No failure in UK. The business model makes sense for the planets sake. The morons that have big cars all year round will be priced out of them. It is that simple.
I've just bought a brand new E Up here in Ireland in February 2024. They're end of line cars, so they have the full spec available, which also includes metallic. It cost me 17500 euro which is approx 15000 stg. I think its a bargain at that price. Cost me 1.60 euro to do 300km or 1.40 stg to do 180 miles. As our run around car its hard to beat, and fun to drive.
You raise a fair point with the size and cost of most EVs. The UP! is what most single people or couples with modest incomes want and need. The streets around me are awash with city cars (mine included) and SUVs just frankly get in the way. The next 5 years could get interesting in EV land.
We got a 2017 e-UP as a second car. That's before the battery upgrade. As a city car it's brilliant. And I would say the upside to me was the interior space. For a small car like the e-UP, it's actually fairly spacious inside. And as for cargo space. I expected it to have almost no room back there, but when we go grocery shopping for the entire week, it's far from full when we get going. And that's after 5 big packs of coca cola (say 100 cans or so), and 4-5 big bags of grocery. And that's even without utilizing the space below the false floor. It's a good drive, and it's comfortable. It's actually a lot better to drive than a lot of newer and bigger EVs I've driven. Since my girl friend rarely drives over long distances, it's the perfect daily driver for her.
The false floor on the boot is a massive back saver, other wise the boot is a deep pit, and it gives the car a flat load bay for car reviewers to praise. Paid £150 to import one from Germany when I got my Mii, worth every penny.
Jay is right. EVs with smaller batteries are great as they are way faster to charge and can meet all of your requirements when you realize that you can pretty much run the battery down to 1 or 2 miles before having to charge. My i3 will go from 20% to 80% in 8 minutes on a DC fast charger and 4 hours at home on 120vac. I don't need long range as all it does is around town....
Very reasonable review. You correctly identify that small EVs are loss makers for manufacturers. Plus, it's really hard to package everything in. In fact, most of the costs of any A or B segment car are the same as a C,D or E segment car - design/development/testing time, parts procurement, build time on the line, transport, storage, PDI, dealer margin, PAS, ESP, ABS, ICE emmission compliance, electric everything etc. all basically the same whether it's a tiny Dacia or a Merc A class. There's a bit less steel and that's about it.
I have the skoda citgo-e 2020 model.with the base Ambition trim package Basicly the same car, but very stripped down in comparison (No CCS Fast charge, no parking sensors automatic wing mirrors or heated seats). Its a really comfotable car to drive short distances, however without CCS I wont take it on more than a 60 mile round trip incase of diversions etc. It currently only costs me £120 a month to own on lease, which includes all servicing, insurance and maintaince costs. Unfortunatly I am having to give it back at the end of its lease in a couple of months (they won't extend it) so expect to find it up for sale soon.
The oddly shaped rear boot is down to the original designs for the Up featuring a rear-engined layout. This left a deep hole behind the rear seats which became a surprisingly large boot.
Absolutely spot on! We grabbed our 2016 e-Golf SE at end-of-lease in 2019, such a good decision. We took the false floor out too. We now have a '22 Kona EV for longer trips, but we're trying to stick to the e-Golf for daily tasks. Damn you VW upper management, for only selling the lacklustre ID.4 SUV here in the US (lackluster here!) and for not pushing small, practical cars like the e-Up. VW, you lost our business. We would have rushed to buy ID.3.
p.s. The ~100-mile range is absolutely usable. Most daily trips are under 30 miles, let's face it. If you're doing more than that: why? Do you think that's reasonable?
We've actually had this car's bigger sister for a little more than 4 years now -- a VW e-Golf (the 2nd generation, with the same battery size as this car actually!). We've bought it new for €24k (€16k rebates total!) and we love every minute of it. It now has 50 000 km and runs just as fine today as it did new, but how susprising is it, really? Nowadays you can find them second hand for a little less than that; you should definitely give it a try, it's an excellent car! Not mine though since we're a sea apart from each other :p In other news, you confused kW with kWh :p The most simple way to remember this is that energy is power (kW) multiplied by time (h); to be exact, 1 kWh is the amount of energy provided by a power of 1 kW over an hour (3600 seconds), therefore 3.6 MJ. A good approximation also is that 1 liter of fossil fuel is about 10 kWh (in fact it's a little less; around 34-35 MJ, not 36): that helps put energy usage into perspective :)
Had one for a year, just recently sold it. I Only sold because I now work full time from home, was such a shame to get rid of as it was one of the best cars I've ever driven. Going back to petrol would be difficult
I was able to buy one in February 2022 in a _very_ brief period of it being available again. Delivery was announced for August 2022 but I highly doubt to get it so early.
See, that's exactly the kind of car that I would buy electric! It would be brilliant for my current work needs and a huge step up from my current daily/work machinery. My petrol head weekend car would remain exactly that and, even though at 20odd grand, it's not exactly change you'd find down the back of the couch, it is a far more agreeable proposition. Nice review James 👌
Could not agree more. I don’t like the idea of EVs for every application, but for city driving and short commutes it’s perfect. And keep a gas car for fun and weekends. Best of all it keeps the battery small for environmental reasons
But owning one, I must say, it is a perfect car to get from a to b. Using it mostly alone, I just flattende the second row and put in a dog guard grid to keep stuff where it belongs, while breaking. That gives one a perfect boot/trunk, which is easy to use.
I had my e-up for a year and I am super happy, such a little nimble car. Don’t have to pay for charging so it’s cheap as it can possibly be. In Sweden, where I live, VW haven’t marketed the e-up at all since I got mine. I don’t even think it’s possible to order it anymore.
Absolutely spot on; the only thing lithium EVs are good for is this kind of short, daily commutes..everything else, from Teslas to big EV SUVs is plain stupid, no matter what government buffs and lobbyist tell us; in the end they're not good for the enviroent and not good for long trips.
I wonder if this suitability has anything to do with the ideas of the people that want everyone to live in cities then wall the cities off from the precious environment.
You are wrong, it takes only 4 years from buying a new EV (owning an efficient ICE) before you have your carbon footprint is lower than if you kept the old car. And if you don’t have any vehicle it’s a no brained. Check out engineering explained video on the subject, he takes the whole production and fuel supply lines into account!
@@TheSteinbitt oh yeah? And does he take into account that lithium batteries are pretty much unrecycleable because of prohibitive costs, or that the overall lifespan of an EV is much shorter and pretty much it kills the used market, turning cars into some big, disposable smartphones where you're pretty much forced to return you worn out vehicle to the dealer and buy a new one, because nobody will buy a used EV with a dead battery that will cost 10s of thousands to replace? Please dont be naive and fall for these scams.Not that ICE vehicles are free of them; the official MPG test is rigged to show smaller engines are more frugal, while the reality is that with modern engines, THE ONLY relevant impact on fuel is WEIGHT; Put a 1L engine on a 1.5 tonne car and you get roughly the same mpg of a 2 or even 3 liter. Small engines are much cheaper to make though, and they look good on the emission/mpg tests, so yeah, we should all put more pressure on all fronts and try not to be tricked or scammed by the industry/politicians.
@@25myma The idea that batteries are unrecycleable is complete nonsense put out by the pro-pollution crowd due to ignorance or feeble attempt to put people off. They go to 2nd life reuse first before seeing a recycling centre. There are just not enough batteries ready for recycling yet to make a suitable market but the number of recycling companies is increasing.
We don't have this car. But we do have a peugeot e2008 EV. And range can be a problem. We are finding many of the chargers are not working or a line of cars waiting to use them. Improvements are needed and the cost of electricity is also getting to the point of it no longer being any cheaper than an ice vehicle.
Unless the owner is living / working in London where the daily congestion fee is financially off putting, then I can not quite get his “man maths” on this 🤔. Yes absolutely agree the e-Up is perfect combination of all necessary electric elements ( a Renault Zoe could also work)…. But a small petrol engined 2nd hand Up/Mii/Citigo would have cost half as much and left him some cash for a weekend sporty runaround. £20 VED and 55mpg with insurance group 2 combined with VW build quality and running costs is a no brainier… I should know, we have had 2 x Citigo in the family…
@@v4skunk739 I love mine . 300 miles in the tank every morning which I rarely fully use. If I do run short I have a network of superchargers that can give my 150 miles in less than 10 mins
@@v4skunk739 using the Tesla supercharger works our at another 10p per mile . If I still had my previous car it would be costing me 20 p per mile. My home charger which provides 90% of all my needs works out at 5 p a mile. So yes it’s much cheaper
I had an job interview yesterday at a company where I could have got 1/4 more salary than I currently earn. I drive a regular VW up! and would have been on the motorway for 114 km a da. After some calculations based of current fuel prices etc. I come the conclusion that it is not worth it. Either I stubbornly drive 90 km/h behind a truck and save fuel, but it takes me forever, or I drive 120/130 km/h and am much faster, but then the consumption goes out the window. The up! is not made for the motorway, it floats quite a bit and is very susceptible to wind. To have done it at least once, I then drove the 165 km/h top speed, as long as you can do it on German Autobahn.
The Up is very stable on the motorway, it really drove like a grown up car. Had one and put 60000km on it. Totally agree with the pushing it to 120, that’s just wasting consumption. But as I am someone who takes it easy anyway, I had no issues. Oh how I miss that LPG converted beast now. €2,35 per 100 kilometers in 2019.
@@martijnkosters9024 My little up! is on 14'' steel rims with very narrow all-weather tyres, is also extremely light at 927 kg because it has no equipment, which may have an effect on the handling at higher speeds.
5:50 False floors are all about bringing the loading platform up to make loading shopping and stuff in and out easier, and it is genuinely easier to get heavy stuff in and out when you dont have to lift it out of a cavernous boot. Im just glad they put a platform there you can remove - my 2016 prius C also has an artificially raise boot floor, but its spaced out with big pieces of shaped high density syrofoam stuff over the space saver etc that is over 6 inches thick in places - absurd. I got hold of a piece from a crashed prius and cut it right down to add 1/3 more boot space.
@@oscarkanal ^yep! Anyway, my point being that its actually good of VW to make that a door/recess you can use if you want to, vs just filling it out with styrene like toyota did.
Nail hit squarely there! This is the electric vehicle we should be encouraged to drive. Most households own two cars so a small EV for commute to work and/or local trips plus an ice car for longer trips (Perhaps a small diesel with a 600+ mile range) would be the ideal solution. We are being cajoled into EV ownership, perhaps the car manufacturers should too. The question of funding our roads in the future will mean that even EVs will have to be taxed so why not base that on the size and weight of a vehicle. Surely that might discourage people from owning cars bigger than their needs.
and theyre coming! the id1 and id2 are supposed to start selling towards the beginning of 2025. but i understand your issue, there arent a lot of compact evs on the market. between the 4m and 4,6m car length, there arent a whole lot of evs. i can only think of the id3 and the e-corsa. i cant get any car longer than 4,4m into my garage but id like to have something better than a very small car like an e-up or zoe. right now e-corsa and id3 are the only choices i have and both are relatively expensive as of yet. guess ill drive my seat leon until its giving up
Probably another reason they're discontinuing it is so they can divert resources not just to the ID3 like you mentioned, but to the upcoming ID1, which seems to be to the Up/Polo what the ID3 is to the Golf.
From an economy perspective, absolutely, but the e-up simply does not compete with the GTI in terms of being a drivers car. The GTI has better handling and is 50% quicker to 60.
@@tommolewis3105 I'd need to drive the GTI, but the e-Up is awesome to chuck around, and the fact that the torque is always there and instant makes up for the lack of horsepower. On a country road it's just tonnes of fun. I had a Mercedes AMG GLA45 before this and yeah, it was a rocket compared to this, but you'd always run out of legal speed limit within 2 seconds of full throttle - this you can just push and push and push. And off the lights it's faster than almost any other petrol car, because again, instant torque - above 30mph of course it loses, but on the city streets? It absolutely rules.
@@gambiting The Up GTI is said to be one of the best driving cars for the horsepower and mpg it achieves. Obviously far more expensive to fuel than the up but it’s a proper hot hatch. Yes I suppose the legal speed limit comment is very true but on some open stretches of national speed limit road you don’t always need to abide by them while still remaining perfectly safe. And instant torque is true, and a fact, but it really isn’t quicker off the line than most cars and this is a common misconception. Petrol and diesel cars you can hold the revs at any desired level, then release the clutch and you have the same torque effect. If you look at 0-10, 0-20, and 0-30 mph tests the up GTI (even though it is petrol) is still faster to all those speeds. Yes absolutely. Like the example given here of a delivery driver this car is probably the best around, his profits will shoot up from his job as far less of them is ending up in fuel. Myself (and I take it you aswell) aren’t a delivery driver and for me, the added power of something like a golf GTI is far more appealing to me, as more of my driving is ‘spirited’ than actually essential for my work. I still use my car to commute however but for me a hot hatch is still more desirable than an economy electric car. But it all comes down to use case and therefore I only speak for myself :)
@@tommolewis3105 you're absolutely right - one thing I just want to add that yes, of course the e-Up loses against a petrol car that's properly launched. But I'm sure you'll agree that 99% of drivers you meet on the road don't launch by keeping the revs up and dumping the clutch. Just like when I had the AMG I didn't launch every time by doing the 10-step process to get the car primed and ready to get maximum torque off the line - it was for special moments only. In the e-Up every time you move off the line it feels special because you can tap into all the torque with literally zero effort, and not look like a dick reving your engine up at traffic lights. Of course the same applies to any EV - the e-Up just occupies an interesting place in the market where it's one of the cheapest EVs but it's not a complete crap box like the Leaf. And where of course we can compare it to a petrol GTI model. But yeah, *personally* I'd pick this over the GTI - but I get why people wouldn't :-)
@@gambiting Haha yeah of course in an automatic car with launch control you’d be still waiting with the lights green if you wanted to set that up and use it every time, I just meant in general with a manual, you can hold it at slightly higher rpm (if you wanted to launch slightly quicker) and same applies in the e-up where not everyone will be flooring it from the lights as that won’t do it’s range any favours lol. Don’t get me wrong that torque feeling from e cars is something else. My friend has a Tesla model 3 SR+ and that thing really does give you the butterflies when he floors it from a standstill, especially when you’re not expecting it. Yeah I would say the e-up is *one*, if not *the*, best value ev on the market, plus you have VW heritage behind it so you know it was properly engineered and tested. I’m still in the early stage of driving so I am still drawn in by faster and louder cars but I can absolutely see the appeal for the e-up and completely understand why you’d chose one. I just think the up GTI is going to be a future classic as it really does fill a niche :)
5:08 - In America, at least, “range anxiety” can be (though not nearly as often as people think it is, and my particular case may indeed be special, if not unique) an actual real issue. For instance, I live in Houston, TX, and most of the week my work is done from home, w/ occasional jaunts to meetings etc… around town, which would he fine (e-speaking). My wife has a 26 mile commute (each way), which again, would not begin to enter the vicinity of range anxiety. However, every other month, I must travel to my family ranch for an inspection tour of the fences (we border a state park) and other scheduled, recurring meetings, negotiations, etc…. It is exactly 599 miles from my door to Ranch HQ. Plus, this ranch is in west Texas, mind you, where it is common - on the Interstate (I-10) that runs directly across the southern part of the country, passes within 1 mile of my house on it’s way though Houston and also passes ≈45 miles from said Ranch - to go 100 miles between towns that have a single gas (petrol) station, and with no way in hell that those small, conservative towns, in the current extremist bipartisanship the US is experiencing, would have an electronic charging station. Needless to say, those trips would be give MAJOR range anxiety in an electric car. Oh, and just to add to the fun: I rescue large dogs, and currently own one 175 lb. Irish Wolfhound that has sever separation anxiety from me, and a second 155 lb. Irish Wolfhound that has separation anxiety from Wolfhound #1. So they go EVERYWHERE I go, which would make a 1200 mile return roadtrip somewhat tight in a small vehicle, petrol, electron, diesel, or whatever powered.
@@JayEmmOnCars Americans with family cars, for reasons that do not make any sense to me, do not buy Diesel engines. Diesel is very popular with Truckers (Lorries) and heavy Duty Trucks. And me, as I bought a 2020 Audi Q5 TDI, which wasn’t easy to find in the US, but I’m glad I did, and I’m glad WHEN I did, as the chip shortage hit the automotive industry just a few months later.
Battery management. My new idea: How much you need battery capasity depends how much you daily needed to drive. If you no need it much, is option swap new battery from your car to older which owner need maximum range. He pay you for it. Your car is new and range is enough and car is cheaper. Warranty issue take place.
Having seen the options list on a 100k car, If you aren't shifting volume (and at the bottom end, electric isnt) then high end is where you have to concentrate to deliver shareholder returns.
A couple of years ago I wanted a small city 2nd car to accompany the Octavia, so I knew about the vw up and skoda citygo. Sure enough, I could no longer order the cheap little cars and there was already a huge waiting list in case any used one popped up. Sad actually, since having such small cars available for purchases could replace bigger cars and thus help us out with traffic congestion. But hey, there’s not enough margin so screw all that….
A real shame they stopped making these. Lovely and compact yet reasonably practical and actually looks quite good in my opinion. Even most other small electric cars are quite a lot bigger than the e-up.
Good talking points, presented convincingly, thank you James. 20K still a boatload of money though. Perhaps time to convert petrol MII's etc. to EV. Very much enjoyed this short and sweet video, excellent length all points covered and nicely shot and edited, fitting to the highlighted car. Thank you. Looking foward as always, to more JayEmm on Cars 😎✌
8:45 Here in Germany there was a brief moment in early 2020 (iirc) where you could profit off of three (!) different subsidising programs at the same time. 2 friends of mine acutally applied and got all accepted to all three of them. They each got a 2 year lease on a 33 kWh e-UP for 100€/month with insurance and they got paid 6800€ over the 2 years in incentives. They both earned money while driving an e-UP.
Another point I think worth mentioning regarding the e-UP: VW uses the e-UP sales figures to fine tune their fleet emissions to just barely meet every time. So if the fleet emissions are too high, expect VW to flood some e-UPs on the market. If they are below penalty threshold, expect none to be sold
I think they all do that. Legislation is dated and needs changed. There needs to be a requirement to make a certain number of low priced electric cars to encourage adoption cause some firms have no emissions at all like Tesla. Where is the Tesla model 1 or 2 ? The 3 is quite a big and expensive car, less would do. The other loophole is expensive hybrid versions where it is difficult to prove the real emissions of the car as it's down to how and where the car is used an issue similar to dieselgate.
Also a German here, i didn't know that, interesting. This might also explain why around early/mid 2020 i kept seeing more nad more e-UP on the Autobahn and in Cities, now i still see them a lot, but not more and more.
I also had no idea they aren't sold anymore? Is this just a thing in the UK or here in Germany as well?
ah so they are still doing those diesel tricks 😂
Its Not a Penalty Car anymore. They increased the price a lot. And they Plan to Produce it till 2025.
Same in italy, 2 years ago, if you give a old car the new é-up cost 6000€
The e-up is the new Mini. I ordered two of them in 2019 and got them in 2021. I payed 10.500€ each. In the city you can not find a better car. It´s so much fun to drive them.
wow that is soo cheap... where do you live? now the car is around 18500 not fully equipped
@@laurentiumarius687 I´m living in Germany. I ordered the car in 2019, delivery 2020. Now it´s sold out.
@@johannesmeyer-dunker6044 Not really sold out, just not really sold because VW needs the batteries for the better margin EVs.
man wtf. Check up the price of one in Bulgaria. EU literally don't let us to get them cheaper because someone has to drive all the second hand junk cars from Germany and Italy :D . Guess we will get affordable EVs in 2050
@@AutumnWind92 Under 20k EUR before gov incentives, which I believe is around 5k EUR in Bulgaria. That being said ordering one has been a totally different story.
This car would absolutely suit 90% of car owners. Nothing more or less needed
Only if you have a driveway or access to power where the car is parked. The electricity at the charge points is too expensive. Yes with the new price hike diesel isn't much cheaper but they are still hugely cheaper to buy
@iNSTAGiB Having done a lot of motorway miles in my old Citigo, I respectfully disagree! It was good for such a small car, but the lack of sound deadening really makes a difference when you sit there for a long time, always felt a little rattled stepping out of the car when I was on the motorway for more than an hour. Definitely better than my mates' C1s, Aygos and others in the class, though.
Disagree, I have one and you would be shocked at the comfort and how much you can fit in them. I’m 6’2 and a full adult can sit behind me (5door) - that’s bloody amazing! And we can fit a full family shop in the boot without going above the lip. And a German shepherd can fit comfortably in the back. And the cruise and refinement is fine for motorways. Really.. what more could you want or need? I only have a second car because I frequently have to do 700 mile round trips for work and I couldn’t afford having to split that up into three or four with hours of recharging. But otherwise … how many people have to do any more than 100 miles a day on the regular. That would be 32000 miles a year. The average is 8-12k per year i.e. something closer to 40 miles a day. This could go 4 days without recharging at that mileage.
The e-up is a lot more refined than the older petrol versions and certainly the Skoda versions, there is obviously no engine noise and because of the premium price point for the size of car, they’ve put a lot of sound deadening in it.
You omit people with kids here
The false floor in the boot means that it's easier to remove shopping etc as the base is not so low down. For this car, it's an excellent place to conceal the charging cables.
Also this is just a carry over from the ice Up in response to new car reviewers complaining that "There's quite a boot lip to lift suit cases over". So blame weedy car reviewers.
True and can always put the rear seats down, which he didn't show. Then you actually have more space than a saloon with seats up.
And the boot is exactly the same size as on a petrol up. The false floor is there to get you a somewhat even floor if you decide to fold the rear seats if you transport something bulky. Also, the electric cable can be fitted into a hole near the rear bumper inside the boot, it does not have to take up all that space. Actually you can fit even something else there beside the cable, like an first aid kit.
I think it's there due to the fact the car was designed as a rear-engined RWD car like the Smart For Two/Four, but got changed to front-engined FWD at quite a late stage
The false floor was an optional extra and none of the 2nd hand eUPs I've looked at have it.
Bought my 2nd-hand eUP about 4 months ago. Sweetest little car I have ever driven.
I've been looking for years for the limited edition, lighter, faster, race track ready version - I think they called it "the Whippet".
That would be the 'whip-ee-t'
Sub 7 Up.. #nurburgring
@@jep1912 isn't that only available in Spain?
The gidd-ee-up
I started leasing one of these 3 weeks ago and love it. Three of my friends/family have been so impressed they have looked into getting one similar to mine, only to find they can't get one. Lucky timing for me and goes well with my Passat R Line Edition which covers the longer journeys!
Nailed it there James. I don’t understand these massive, heavy, expensive electric cars with 0-60 in under 4 seconds. Surely the average punter doing their daily commute needs nothing of the sort.
Yeah but dont want a milk float either, 0-60 sub 7 should be very easy to achieve to give Gti like performance.
We've found an eUp! can regularly beat BMW and Audi drivers away from the lights and corner just as well at legal speeds on country roads - but then we have less mass in the driver's seat taxing the small drive motor :)
Yup. Most two-car households can and should get a car like this. If and when they become more readily available, that is.
Given the miles we do and the kind of journeys, this is very much the car we "SHOULD" have as our second car. Thing is, even as an above average income household 20k on a second car is beyond the pale so the "CAN" bit is somewhat out the window...
@@saippuakivikuappias Yep, fully agree. And now they are asking used ones more money than they were sold new…
We got ours on an extremely cheap monthly lease deal back in September 2021. Like two decent mobile phone bills per month cheap. Never had a car as cheap and it’s a brilliant little car, we use ours for everything, except my 700 mile round trips for work, including carrying a German shepherd (in comfort!) in the back. I’m sad to hear that they aren’t making them available any more, they are pricing people out of the correct size of electric car imo
Ah yes because everyone has enough money to get a new car
@@zynifi Ultimatly, the move to elecctric will price low income people off the roads. Something everyone seems to ignore.
The review is on point. It seems that especially with the State incentives the car was selling to good. Especially during supply chain troubled times. So they cut it off to not cannibalize the ID3 Sales. I guess for a lot of people that car would be just enough and that is of coarse not good for the more expensive cars in the line-up.
That's not entirely true, the annual production of the ID3 for 2022 was already sold out in January. So no reason to brake the E-UP.
Great video. We took delivery of our e-Up a few weeks ago and we absolutely love it. Nippy, comfortable, and so easy to drive and use.
We've got a 2015 e-up with the shorter range. Absolutely love it. Best car I've ever owned.
I should receive my brand new VW Yorkshire in the next few weeks. Glad I ordered it last November! Traded a 2 litre Audi Q2.
I remember having a Dolomite Sprint when I was 20, running out of money and swapping it for an Imp. Your 20 year old friend is my spiritual successor. Oh and great points,
I swapped my dolomite sprint for a triumph herald 13/60 loved it .now i drive an E38 740I love it ,£20 to the mile
My optician, with whom I started sharing car stories for some reason years ago, just sold his two-year-old e-Up for more than he originally paid for it. Glorious times.
Love this car !! Please bring more EV's on the channel ;)
I've had a Citigo and an Up! Both brilliant cars, highly recommended. The pinnacle of city cars I think
Chronic rust issues on the pre 2017 models and any other models without rear wheel arch liners around the fuel filler. The only good Ups are post facelift high spec models and they just cost too much.
Thanks J, this does seem a reasonable option as you say, usable range. Shame UK doesn't get better purchase incentives like other countries.
I had an early first gen. BMW i3 BEV in almost the lowest spec (though with things that should have been default like fast charging & a heat pump) when the second hand market thought car batteries would die after a couple of years. It was a second car just for short trips and the total ownership cost per km was totally offset by not using the big car, which could do those long journeys fully laden, for those short trips. Hence it was effectively a 'free' second car and was a much better fit for those trips than the bigger car.
If I wanted to buy the same car - a Dec 2013 model - now it would cost close to what I paid for it in early 2015.
@gerhard goedhart What a coincidence Gerhard. I traded mine in as I was moving to a ski resort and decided I needed AWD. So I went for a 340i xDrive Touring (with the m-sport sound & power pack). I honesty preferred the i3 to the 340. I'm now in an Alpina B5 Touring for long journey stuff and a mint 2005 Mini Cooper S for the shorter stuff (95% of journeys). At some stage I'll get another i3 as its one of the cars I most enjoyed owning.
My point on the i3 - just like the reviewed eUp - is that as a second car a small, limited range EV makes absolute sense for most people and if you look at total ownership costs adding one to your garage might not be as expensive as initially they seem.
I considered one of these e Up! cars for my wife a few months ago but opted for the GTI instead because of the price difference and the GTI is a much more funkier car and she the lady simply loves it
Little electric are great as part of a collection - my Green/Black 67 plate Smart 4/2 electric was £9600 and does 72 miles (enough for local visits), turns on a croissant 🥐 and costs £3-4 a charge and I park it head on in town !
I fully agree with you. Small E Cars make sense when commuting and if employers were providing free charging during the day when you work in the office then you’d never run out of power. I never understood how driving a 3t e-suv on the road is supposed to be greener than a modern efficient diesel car. I am considering to buy a smaller e car to help us commute and do the shopping. For longer distance there are planes, trains and rent a car S class.
As an EV owner, this is the best small EV car on sale. I own the petrol Up and it’s excellent. The e-Up is even better. Smooth,quiet and punchy. The efficiency is excellent. Much better than the £10k more expensive Honda-e which I am sure has been a sales flop, as hardly seen any in the real world.
The Honda E is 10k more car than the extremely aged Up. The Up doesn't even have a screen in it and has none of the new safety stuff and it is also dated in every other way other than driving dynamics... and it still drives much worse than the petrol facelift Up.
@@xiaofengxiaofengxiaofengxi4651 Can you elaborate on the "it still drives much worse than the petrol facelift Up"? What do you mean exactly? Thanks.
@@aqdrk extremely heavy compared to the normal up, worse ride and handling by a considerable margin.
@@moa-wg3bo because I want access to music control on the dash. All the up has is a shitty cradle thing.
@@moa-wg3bo which is garbage to use in a car
My use case for a small car on the one hand is local runabout and backup for our VW Touran family bus, on the other hand I do solo weekly return journeys of 150 miles each way, often at dusk / night at the national / motorway speed limit - I need something quiet, comfortable and relatively roomy for transporting things - and of course it needs to be very cheap to run.
I have a 2004 Audi A2 1.4 TDI with a six speed gearbox I put in it from a later car. £30 road tax, 60-65mpg due to being made of aluminium and qualifies for cheaper classic car insurance. It has heated leather seats, it has isofix for my kids, I can stream music to its (Bose) stereo from my phone, I have an engine block heater installed so instant heat in the winter and it’s so simple that I do my own maintenance (but if I wasn’t so inclined my local garage would at low cost). It cost me £3k to buy, it’s very refined to drive with good safety equipment and brakes and has been totally reliable.
Until someone makes a small car that can surpass all this in every way and cost me similar overall over a projected life of say 10 years, I’m sticking with what I have - but I would make the switch if such an option existed.
I guess you have to want to drive a new / nearly new car and be willing to pay significantly for that privilege- whereas in my case I’m happy to go with an older car that fits the brief and keep it immaculate / keep on top of maintenance and cosmetic flaws to keep it looking and feeling fresh. I humbly submit that this is better for the environment that the total life impact of making a new electric car.
20K is an awful lot of money to spend on a car like this.
Exactly.
Also find it odd that he can't afford 40p a litre extra in fuel, but he's driving £20-25k cars? Lol
@@ihavenousername1805 I would suggest you consider the maintenance cost VAG group cars have, mine had shocking bills, turbo/injectors/fuelpump/timingchain etc, these issues go away with electric car, then the tax cost, insurance cost and fuel is rapidly approaching 50 a litre more and who knows where it will end up ? 2 pound a litre this year probably.
@@jondonnelly3
I know how ridiculously overpriced VAG stuff is to buy and run from experience.
I just don't understand how going from one overpriced VAG shitter to another one would save any money?
@@ihavenousername1805 I own a 2016 Audi A6 Allroad (with the said 3L V6 diesel engine) - and I can tell you the car is a maintenance nightmare. Just dropped £4.8K on the timing chain and some other failed bits.
So it's more than just the 40p fuel surplus that you have to take into account.
However, how many years could you run and how many miles could you put through a 1.5L dci Renault Clio for £20K? To me, the Clio would be the first choice.
@@peterbratu
Yeah, before I sold my RS5 at the start of the year, it needed new front discs and pads, a caliper, two rear tyres, and a cat converter in the space of a month. Nearly crippled me lol.
My point was, how is spending nearly £25 grand on a small hatchback going to benefit you financially?
I've got the Seat version. Holds it's own on the motorway and not much gets to 30mph quicker. A 5 hour overnight charge once a week gives me 165 miles of range.
This is what EV's need to be, not £50k+ rocket ships with 0-60 times under 3 seconds.
I don't think smaller cars are the real answer to city overcrowding. I've just spent five days travelling around The Netherlands and it's clear that the answer is walking, bicycles and public transport in the form of trains, trams and buses. Travelling to and around Dutch cities is ridiculously easy, more convenient and way faster than driving. The Dutch got it right years ago, time for us to catch up!
You're completely right. But it would be nice to see cars like this instead of those monstrous SUVs that everyone seems to 'need' these days.
@@thecraigmachine69 you mean we don't need people driving on their own in their full size 2.5 tonne range rovers to the shops and back? How else will they ensure they have as much environment impact on the world as they possibly can?
@@R03333 Haha indeed.
@@thecraigmachine69 Let them buy those monstrous SUVs, if only there could be a market for normal sized cars anymore. Things that used to be small have turned gigantic and that makes me sad. Because it means I'm stuck in the 90s and early 00s and there are fewer and fewer nice examples around, most have a terrible amount off rust here and as much as I like spending time in the garage. Welding in new body parts ain't on the top of my list
I also question how's going to buy those SUVs when they are 10 years + old. Value has to drop to damn bottom
You can not expect people like Boris to mix with the general public. Can you?
Really hit the nail on the head there Jay. But since when has common sense had any part in sales and marketing?!
People keep calling them 'city cars' but I can't see what it couldn't do in a rural area, you can easily get to the nearest city/town for bulk shopping, and it's not like you're barelling down unpaved roads.
If you do live in a city your answer is mass transit or rentals.
You'll own nothing, and be happy about it...
I think it's more of a reference to the size of the car, as opposed to the drivetrain.
Correct, "city car" is more of a class than a description
@@lucasroper46 I don't think he got any, from the fact that he just echoing without any meaningful way. That phrase is getting tired.
@@AntoniusTyasHe's right
Thanks, you are right, many potential users do not need a huge range, and 0-60 times are a bit irrelevant, anything around 10 secs is fine.
But range and accelaration times are what sells, and some people are prepared to pay.
Enjoying the video, it's good to see one... I ordered mine in October 2021 for delivery in February 2022, now told it might come in September but as yet have no build week!
If you have an annual or quarterly long journey it would make sense to have this and hire a larger vehicle/longer range car for those trips. It would take a long time to use up the £10 to £15k saved in purchasing costs plus cheaper insurance and maintenance costs.
In the Netherlands back in the day when you bought a brand new bmw i3 you could get a petrol bmw as a loaner ( no charge ) for 2 weeks a year to do long trips/vacations
I am the lucky owner of a Skoda Citigo petrol, and Skoda eCitigo. Both are brilliant. The petrol car we use for longer journeys, while the electric one takes me anywhere about town. In Summer range is 160 miles (just avoid turning the AC on), in Winter it gives me 110 miles.
Many friends with bigger cars ask me whether such a small car isn't a problem going on holiday. That's why I also have a roof box and even a bike rack.
I love my little cars and the eCitigo is faster than most at traffic lights.
Most people really don't need big cars and for any family with 2 cars, a small electric car is perfect, if you can find one...
Excellent video. Totally agree with your contention on size and price for eCars. I would buy one tomorrow (as a second car) if small and cheap.
They're still making them, we ordered one recently and we're picking it up tomorrow from the dealership. (In France)
I changed my GR Yaris for a (petrol) UP! GTi.
I couldn’t get on with the Yaris for so many reasons. I love the UP! GTi to bits!
Hey, what’s we’re the main issues you found with the Yaris? Just would be interesting to know from someone who owned it
@@andrewshchur8515 - hi. For me lots. Performance was amazing . But …
In no order of priority
Dead lifeless steering
Too many “driver aids”
Horrendous road noise on the coarse tarmac of Scottish roads. Some reviewers used ear plugs.
Poor range (230 miles is per tank)
Despite its performance I didn’t find it “fun” to drive. It wasn’t “engaging” for me .
I was able to sell it at a significant profit. Given the niggles (for me) it made perfect sense to pass it on.
My recent car history was mx5 RF 2l
Abarth 595 Competizione
Alfa 147 gta
Porsche Cayman s
I don’t regret changing to the UP GTi - it has character in spades, it is fun, and it brings a smile to my face every time I drive it .
But we are all different ……….
@@allansr100 Wow that's the first time hearing about someone not getting on with the Yaris GR, its been getting nothing but rave reviews everywhere.. Still think they over priced for what you get especially in the current climate. But always liked the look of the Up Gti.
Love how nimble small cars are. My first car was a blue 2016 Aygo and I still miss it to this day. Met it's end when a van driver decided to not pay attention to a red light. Could do 50mpg no issue, and the 3 pot sounded quite good for what it was.
50mpg out of a 1.0 68hp Aygo is pathetic. Round town I get 45mpg in my 1.2T 4 pot Toyota Auris and on rural roads 52-52mpg and on the motorway 60mpg all day long. No such thing as a nice sounding 3 pot either they just sound like they're misfiring.
@@gravemind6536 the aygo actually sounds really good, sounds like a mini porsche 6 cyl. the up however sounds pretty lame(petrol one)
@@gravemind6536 it called an opinion mate, I also like 3 cylinder rumbles..
Living in West Yorkshire I believe a 150 mile winter race would be more than enough. As a 2017 i3 owner, so many new EVs are awesome yet completely unaffordable because of a 300+ mile battery which I'd use once a year at most.
Had one as a courtesy car and it was surprisingly good. Good pull up to 40mph and even after that it wasn't painfully slow.
I wish we had those kind of cars in the USA. I would love one of those. I do love my 2015 Spark EV though even with half the range.
Gordon Murray probably got the idea about lightness from Colin Chapman.
Remember a few years ago trying both a petrol UP and a Polo. Really impressed with the UP and the only reason for anyone choosing the Polo would be more interior space. By the looks of it, the eUP is equally impressive.
The way people select and own cars has got to change. If you only need those seven seats and massive luggage space for the annual camping holiday, hire something fun for that week. It will be a laugh for everyone and add to the holiday experience. For the rest of the year, run a regular car like a Golf and save yourself many pounds and save the planet.
One area that is interesting for future EV ownership is modular batteries. For most of the year 200 miles range is adequate. Can you imagine for your annual holiday to Dorset, hire an extra battery pack for the week to give you 400 miles range.
that misses one big thing about car ownership, freedom
having a small car that can"t get far from your home may fit how you use it regularly, but it also kills opportunities to spontaneously break the routine, or even emergency travel.
if every extraordinary trip requires the hassle and extra money on renting a car that fits the occasion, and binds you to a set agreement with a rental company, and instead of being able to work together with friends on moves or other projects everyone has to hire and wait for a company themselves, much of what makes life worthwhile just won"t happen
That modular battery pack sounds tedious, perhaps practical, but easy thing to screw up by the company whos going to install that modular battery fort that Dorset holiday
@UCuYNVExIl9JE7KjHdNLaNGg No failure in UK. The business model makes sense for the planets sake. The morons that have big cars all year round will be priced out of them. It is that simple.
If only I could get an EV with 200 miles range that fits in my garage. I need something a bit narrower than the current BMW Mini.
These cars are hideous I wouldn't want to be caught driving one
Brilliant video.... Informative, factual. I couldn't disagree on any point. Super little car.... If only you could actually buy a new one.
I've just bought a brand new E Up here in Ireland in February 2024. They're end of line cars, so they have the full spec available, which also includes metallic. It cost me 17500 euro which is approx 15000 stg. I think its a bargain at that price. Cost me 1.60 euro to do 300km or 1.40 stg to do 180 miles. As our run around car its hard to beat, and fun to drive.
You raise a fair point with the size and cost of most EVs. The UP! is what most single people or couples with modest incomes want and need. The streets around me are awash with city cars (mine included) and SUVs just frankly get in the way. The next 5 years could get interesting in EV land.
We got a 2017 e-UP as a second car. That's before the battery upgrade. As a city car it's brilliant. And I would say the upside to me was the interior space. For a small car like the e-UP, it's actually fairly spacious inside. And as for cargo space. I expected it to have almost no room back there, but when we go grocery shopping for the entire week, it's far from full when we get going. And that's after 5 big packs of coca cola (say 100 cans or so), and 4-5 big bags of grocery. And that's even without utilizing the space below the false floor. It's a good drive, and it's comfortable. It's actually a lot better to drive than a lot of newer and bigger EVs I've driven. Since my girl friend rarely drives over long distances, it's the perfect daily driver for her.
The false floor on the boot is a massive back saver, other wise the boot is a deep pit, and it gives the car a flat load bay for car reviewers to praise. Paid £150 to import one from Germany when I got my Mii, worth every penny.
Great Video! Still maintain that it's a fantastic city car where it is at home. However Put it in rural mid wales and it may struggle
Jay is right. EVs with smaller batteries are great as they are way faster to charge and can meet all of your requirements when you realize that you can pretty much run the battery down to 1 or 2 miles before having to charge. My i3 will go from 20% to 80% in 8 minutes on a DC fast charger and 4 hours at home on 120vac. I don't need long range as all it does is around town....
Awesome fun little car. Nice video. Keep up the good work.
An eUp drove past me on a bike yesterday. Never happened before
Very reasonable review. You correctly identify that small EVs are loss makers for manufacturers. Plus, it's really hard to package everything in. In fact, most of the costs of any A or B segment car are the same as a C,D or E segment car - design/development/testing time, parts procurement, build time on the line, transport, storage, PDI, dealer margin, PAS, ESP, ABS, ICE emmission compliance, electric everything etc. all basically the same whether it's a tiny Dacia or a Merc A class. There's a bit less steel and that's about it.
I have the skoda citgo-e 2020 model.with the base Ambition trim package
Basicly the same car, but very stripped down in comparison (No CCS Fast charge, no parking sensors automatic wing mirrors or heated seats). Its a really comfotable car to drive short distances, however without CCS I wont take it on more than a 60 mile round trip incase of diversions etc.
It currently only costs me £120 a month to own on lease, which includes all servicing, insurance and maintaince costs.
Unfortunatly I am having to give it back at the end of its lease in a couple of months (they won't extend it) so expect to find it up for sale soon.
At 22 I recently made a similar jump, traded my E90 325i in for Mini Cooper SE 😂
The oddly shaped rear boot is down to the original designs for the Up featuring a rear-engined layout. This left a deep hole behind the rear seats which became a surprisingly large boot.
Absolutely spot on! We grabbed our 2016 e-Golf SE at end-of-lease in 2019, such a good decision. We took the false floor out too. We now have a '22 Kona EV for longer trips, but we're trying to stick to the e-Golf for daily tasks. Damn you VW upper management, for only selling the lacklustre ID.4 SUV here in the US (lackluster here!) and for not pushing small, practical cars like the e-Up. VW, you lost our business. We would have rushed to buy ID.3.
p.s. The ~100-mile range is absolutely usable. Most daily trips are under 30 miles, let's face it. If you're doing more than that: why? Do you think that's reasonable?
We've actually had this car's bigger sister for a little more than 4 years now -- a VW e-Golf (the 2nd generation, with the same battery size as this car actually!). We've bought it new for €24k (€16k rebates total!) and we love every minute of it. It now has 50 000 km and runs just as fine today as it did new, but how susprising is it, really?
Nowadays you can find them second hand for a little less than that; you should definitely give it a try, it's an excellent car! Not mine though since we're a sea apart from each other :p
In other news, you confused kW with kWh :p The most simple way to remember this is that energy is power (kW) multiplied by time (h); to be exact, 1 kWh is the amount of energy provided by a power of 1 kW over an hour (3600 seconds), therefore 3.6 MJ. A good approximation also is that 1 liter of fossil fuel is about 10 kWh (in fact it's a little less; around 34-35 MJ, not 36): that helps put energy usage into perspective :)
Not a lot of people know this but the E-up is built in Yorkshire and was originally called the Nah then, ow do?
I have à seat MII and its the best car i ever have ^^ i make 250 to 300 km in mixt road in France 🇫🇷
Had one for a year, just recently sold it. I Only sold because I now work full time from home, was such a shame to get rid of as it was one of the best cars I've ever driven. Going back to petrol would be difficult
I was able to buy one in February 2022 in a _very_ brief period of it being available again. Delivery was announced for August 2022 but I highly doubt to get it so early.
Got a BMW i3 REX does 80+ in the summer and 60+ miles in the winter, but as I never do more than 30 miles its all good for me.
See, that's exactly the kind of car that I would buy electric! It would be brilliant for my current work needs and a huge step up from my current daily/work machinery. My petrol head weekend car would remain exactly that and, even though at 20odd grand, it's not exactly change you'd find down the back of the couch, it is a far more agreeable proposition. Nice review James 👌
Could not agree more. I don’t like the idea of EVs for every application, but for city driving and short commutes it’s perfect. And keep a gas car for fun and weekends. Best of all it keeps the battery small for environmental reasons
Now, if we could only get VW to make the e-Up available in Canada…
You can not even get the VW up period
It does not register as a car on the north american side. It's simply to small. You would never find your tiny car in your hugh landscape. ;-)
But owning one, I must say, it is a perfect car to get from a to b.
Using it mostly alone, I just flattende the second row and put in a dog guard grid to keep stuff where it belongs, while breaking. That gives one a perfect boot/trunk, which is easy to use.
I had my e-up for a year and I am super happy, such a little nimble car. Don’t have to pay for charging so it’s cheap as it can possibly be. In Sweden, where I live, VW haven’t marketed the e-up at all since I got mine. I don’t even think it’s possible to order it anymore.
Advertising for the E-UP is also not necessary, VW cannot keep up with production.
Absolutely spot on; the only thing lithium EVs are good for is this kind of short, daily commutes..everything else, from Teslas to big EV SUVs is plain stupid, no matter what government buffs and lobbyist tell us; in the end they're not good for the enviroent and not good for long trips.
Absolutely spot on. I think hydrogen would have been a better environment friendly alternative for big cars and lorries.
I wonder if this suitability has anything to do with the ideas of the people that want everyone to live in cities then wall the cities off from the precious environment.
You are wrong, it takes only 4 years from buying a new EV (owning an efficient ICE) before you have your carbon footprint is lower than if you kept the old car. And if you don’t have any vehicle it’s a no brained. Check out engineering explained video on the subject, he takes the whole production and fuel supply lines into account!
@@TheSteinbitt oh yeah? And does he take into account that lithium batteries are pretty much unrecycleable because of prohibitive costs, or that the overall lifespan of an EV is much shorter and pretty much it kills the used market, turning cars into some big, disposable smartphones where you're pretty much forced to return you worn out vehicle to the dealer and buy a new one, because nobody will buy a used EV with a dead battery that will cost 10s of thousands to replace?
Please dont be naive and fall for these scams.Not that ICE vehicles are free of them; the official MPG test is rigged to show smaller engines are more frugal, while the reality is that with modern engines, THE ONLY relevant impact on fuel is WEIGHT; Put a 1L engine on a 1.5 tonne car and you get roughly the same mpg of a 2 or even 3 liter. Small engines are much cheaper to make though, and they look good on the emission/mpg tests, so yeah, we should all put more pressure on all fronts and try not to be tricked or scammed by the industry/politicians.
@@25myma The idea that batteries are unrecycleable is complete nonsense put out by the pro-pollution crowd due to ignorance or feeble attempt to put people off. They go to 2nd life reuse first before seeing a recycling centre. There are just not enough batteries ready for recycling yet to make a suitable market but the number of recycling companies is increasing.
We don't have this car.
But we do have a peugeot e2008 EV.
And range can be a problem.
We are finding many of the chargers are not working or a line of cars waiting to use them.
Improvements are needed and the cost of electricity is also getting to the point of it no longer being any cheaper than an ice vehicle.
The false floor is the best about it. Nice Video!
Loving the shirt...
Unless the owner is living / working in London where the daily congestion fee is financially off putting, then I can not quite get his “man maths” on this 🤔. Yes absolutely agree the e-Up is perfect combination of all necessary electric elements ( a Renault Zoe could also work)…. But a small petrol engined 2nd hand Up/Mii/Citigo would have cost half as much and left him some cash for a weekend sporty runaround. £20 VED and 55mpg with insurance group 2 combined with VW build quality and running costs is a no brainier… I should know, we have had 2 x Citigo in the family…
EV are a joke. Go ask a taxi driver what they think about them.
@@v4skunk739 I love mine . 300 miles in the tank every morning which I rarely fully use. If I do run short I have a network of superchargers that can give my 150 miles in less than 10 mins
@@BEGGARWOOD1 How much does a super charger cost to use again? Its hardly cheaper then fuelling a car.
@@v4skunk739 using the Tesla supercharger works our at another 10p per mile . If I still had my previous car it would be costing me 20 p per mile. My home charger which provides 90% of all my needs works out at 5 p a mile. So yes it’s much cheaper
@@BEGGARWOOD1 Cope. It costs £40 to charge an EV like a Taycan or Tesla from 1% to 100% at a super charger.
I can see the e-Up living on in places such as South Africa, Brazil or Mexico once they get electricity over there.
Amen to all of what you said about electric cars. Great vid
GridServe Braintree! Was there last week :) Keep up the great Content
Thanks! Will do!
I had an job interview yesterday at a company where I could have got 1/4 more salary than I currently earn. I drive a regular VW up! and would have been on the motorway for 114 km a da. After some calculations based of current fuel prices etc. I come the conclusion that it is not worth it. Either I stubbornly drive 90 km/h behind a truck and save fuel, but it takes me forever, or I drive 120/130 km/h and am much faster, but then the consumption goes out the window.
The up! is not made for the motorway, it floats quite a bit and is very susceptible to wind. To have done it at least once, I then drove the 165 km/h top speed, as long as you can do it on German Autobahn.
You need a car with a bigger engine, you'll get better motorway mpg.
The Up is very stable on the motorway, it really drove like a grown up car. Had one and put 60000km on it. Totally agree with the pushing it to 120, that’s just wasting consumption. But as I am someone who takes it easy anyway, I had no issues.
Oh how I miss that LPG converted beast now. €2,35 per 100 kilometers in 2019.
@@martijnkosters9024 My little up! is on 14'' steel rims with very narrow all-weather tyres, is also extremely light at 927 kg because it has no equipment, which may have an effect on the handling at higher speeds.
@@Sir-Prizse oh no it was fine on the narrowest 14” alloys, though lugging 40+ kg in the boot helps to keep it planted I am sure.
The electric version feels a lot more stable though. It's heavier and has a lower centre of mass.
5:50 False floors are all about bringing the loading platform up to make loading shopping and stuff in and out easier, and it is genuinely easier to get heavy stuff in and out when you dont have to lift it out of a cavernous boot. Im just glad they put a platform there you can remove - my 2016 prius C also has an artificially raise boot floor, but its spaced out with big pieces of shaped high density syrofoam stuff over the space saver etc that is over 6 inches thick in places - absurd. I got hold of a piece from a crashed prius and cut it right down to add 1/3 more boot space.
It also makes the loading area flat when folding the rear seats down
@@oscarkanal ^yep! Anyway, my point being that its actually good of VW to make that a door/recess you can use if you want to, vs just filling it out with styrene like toyota did.
They made a version of this for the Yorkshire market, it was called the ay-Up.
Right you are. It's a great model. Will take a while before ID2 gets there.
Nail hit squarely there! This is the electric vehicle we should be encouraged to drive. Most households own two cars so a small EV for commute to work and/or local trips plus an ice car for longer trips (Perhaps a small diesel with a 600+ mile range) would be the ideal solution. We are being cajoled into EV ownership, perhaps the car manufacturers should too.
The question of funding our roads in the future will mean that even EVs will have to be taxed so why not base that on the size and weight of a vehicle. Surely that might discourage people from owning cars bigger than their needs.
It drives very well, love it!
Yes we do need more cars like this now, great video 😂
I would love an e-Polo to be honest..
Indeed where are the warm/hot versions of small electric cars? The type of car that is fun to drive that drivers want.
toyota has prius TRD in japan, suppoedly nissan e power is not any better
There will be no E Polo, but at some point there will be an ID 2.
and theyre coming! the id1 and id2 are supposed to start selling towards the beginning of 2025.
but i understand your issue, there arent a lot of compact evs on the market. between the 4m and 4,6m car length, there arent a whole lot of evs. i can only think of the id3 and the e-corsa. i cant get any car longer than 4,4m into my garage but id like to have something better than a very small car like an e-up or zoe. right now e-corsa and id3 are the only choices i have and both are relatively expensive as of yet. guess ill drive my seat leon until its giving up
@@Xzibitfreek bunch of garbage.not recylable, not as effceint as can be, not like zundapp janus and aptera ...
Probably another reason they're discontinuing it is so they can divert resources not just to the ID3 like you mentioned, but to the upcoming ID1, which seems to be to the Up/Polo what the ID3 is to the Golf.
I have one of these, it’s absolutely awesome! Would actually pick this over the GTI!
From an economy perspective, absolutely, but the e-up simply does not compete with the GTI in terms of being a drivers car. The GTI has better handling and is 50% quicker to 60.
@@tommolewis3105 I'd need to drive the GTI, but the e-Up is awesome to chuck around, and the fact that the torque is always there and instant makes up for the lack of horsepower. On a country road it's just tonnes of fun. I had a Mercedes AMG GLA45 before this and yeah, it was a rocket compared to this, but you'd always run out of legal speed limit within 2 seconds of full throttle - this you can just push and push and push. And off the lights it's faster than almost any other petrol car, because again, instant torque - above 30mph of course it loses, but on the city streets? It absolutely rules.
@@gambiting The Up GTI is said to be one of the best driving cars for the horsepower and mpg it achieves. Obviously far more expensive to fuel than the up but it’s a proper hot hatch. Yes I suppose the legal speed limit comment is very true but on some open stretches of national speed limit road you don’t always need to abide by them while still remaining perfectly safe. And instant torque is true, and a fact, but it really isn’t quicker off the line than most cars and this is a common misconception. Petrol and diesel cars you can hold the revs at any desired level, then release the clutch and you have the same torque effect. If you look at 0-10, 0-20, and 0-30 mph tests the up GTI (even though it is petrol) is still faster to all those speeds. Yes absolutely. Like the example given here of a delivery driver this car is probably the best around, his profits will shoot up from his job as far less of them is ending up in fuel. Myself (and I take it you aswell) aren’t a delivery driver and for me, the added power of something like a golf GTI is far more appealing to me, as more of my driving is ‘spirited’ than actually essential for my work. I still use my car to commute however but for me a hot hatch is still more desirable than an economy electric car. But it all comes down to use case and therefore I only speak for myself :)
@@tommolewis3105 you're absolutely right - one thing I just want to add that yes, of course the e-Up loses against a petrol car that's properly launched. But I'm sure you'll agree that 99% of drivers you meet on the road don't launch by keeping the revs up and dumping the clutch. Just like when I had the AMG I didn't launch every time by doing the 10-step process to get the car primed and ready to get maximum torque off the line - it was for special moments only. In the e-Up every time you move off the line it feels special because you can tap into all the torque with literally zero effort, and not look like a dick reving your engine up at traffic lights.
Of course the same applies to any EV - the e-Up just occupies an interesting place in the market where it's one of the cheapest EVs but it's not a complete crap box like the Leaf. And where of course we can compare it to a petrol GTI model.
But yeah, *personally* I'd pick this over the GTI - but I get why people wouldn't :-)
@@gambiting Haha yeah of course in an automatic car with launch control you’d be still waiting with the lights green if you wanted to set that up and use it every time, I just meant in general with a manual, you can hold it at slightly higher rpm (if you wanted to launch slightly quicker) and same applies in the e-up where not everyone will be flooring it from the lights as that won’t do it’s range any favours lol. Don’t get me wrong that torque feeling from e cars is something else. My friend has a Tesla model 3 SR+ and that thing really does give you the butterflies when he floors it from a standstill, especially when you’re not expecting it. Yeah I would say the e-up is *one*, if not *the*, best value ev on the market, plus you have VW heritage behind it so you know it was properly engineered and tested. I’m still in the early stage of driving so I am still drawn in by faster and louder cars but I can absolutely see the appeal for the e-up and completely understand why you’d chose one. I just think the up GTI is going to be a future classic as it really does fill a niche :)
5:08 - In America, at least, “range anxiety” can be (though not nearly as often as people think it is, and my particular case may indeed be special, if not unique) an actual real issue. For instance, I live in Houston, TX, and most of the week my work is done from home, w/ occasional jaunts to meetings etc… around town, which would he fine (e-speaking). My wife has a 26 mile commute (each way), which again, would not begin to enter the vicinity of range anxiety. However, every other month, I must travel to my family ranch for an inspection tour of the fences (we border a state park) and other scheduled, recurring meetings, negotiations, etc…. It is exactly 599 miles from my door to Ranch HQ. Plus, this ranch is in west Texas, mind you, where it is common - on the Interstate (I-10) that runs directly across the southern part of the country, passes within 1 mile of my house on it’s way though Houston and also passes ≈45 miles from said Ranch - to go 100 miles between towns that have a single gas (petrol) station, and with no way in hell that those small, conservative towns, in the current extremist bipartisanship the US is experiencing, would have an electronic charging station. Needless to say, those trips would be give MAJOR range anxiety in an electric car.
Oh, and just to add to the fun: I rescue large dogs, and currently own one 175 lb. Irish Wolfhound that has sever separation anxiety from me, and a second 155 lb. Irish Wolfhound that has separation anxiety from Wolfhound #1. So they go EVERYWHERE I go, which would make a 1200 mile return roadtrip somewhat tight in a small vehicle, petrol, electron, diesel, or whatever powered.
In fairness, the fuel that would actually suit your needs is diesel - but that never seemed to work in the US either!
@@JayEmmOnCars Americans with family cars, for reasons that do not make any sense to me, do not buy Diesel engines. Diesel is very popular with Truckers (Lorries) and heavy Duty Trucks. And me, as I bought a 2020 Audi Q5 TDI, which wasn’t easy to find in the US, but I’m glad I did, and I’m glad WHEN I did, as the chip shortage hit the automotive industry just a few months later.
Battery management. My new idea: How much you need battery capasity depends how much you daily needed to drive. If you no need it much, is option swap new battery from your car to older which owner need maximum range. He pay you for it. Your car is new and range is enough and car is cheaper. Warranty issue take place.
Having seen the options list on a 100k car, If you aren't shifting volume (and at the bottom end, electric isnt) then high end is where you have to concentrate to deliver shareholder returns.
A couple of years ago I wanted a small city 2nd car to accompany the Octavia, so I knew about the vw up and skoda citygo. Sure enough, I could no longer order the cheap little cars and there was already a huge waiting list in case any used one popped up. Sad actually, since having such small cars available for purchases could replace bigger cars and thus help us out with traffic congestion. But hey, there’s not enough margin so screw all that….
remember when they were only selling it as the Seat Mii electric and it cost £21,995!!
The girth on that steering wheel!
You said on your F12 video you're 30% on your way to become Clarkson-wannabe.
That Yorkshire joke is the other 70%.
Not a sleight, tho.
Now they should put the drivetrain from the Golf/Passat GTEs, into the Up!, and call it the R-Up!-E? It'd probably be a sweet hot micro-hatch
That's a great take from the current market situation
Loving the recent raft of videos.
Top work!
A real shame they stopped making these. Lovely and compact yet reasonably practical and actually looks quite good in my opinion. Even most other small electric cars are quite a lot bigger than the e-up.
Perfect intro 😂
A balanced view from a true petrol head, well done JM! (I drive an I Pace myself now)
Good video and spot on with your views on leccy cars in the real world.
Only available for the Yorkshire market.
Good talking points, presented convincingly, thank you James. 20K still a boatload of money though. Perhaps time to convert petrol MII's etc. to EV. Very much enjoyed this short and sweet video, excellent length all points covered and nicely shot and edited, fitting to the highlighted car. Thank you. Looking foward as always, to more JayEmm on Cars 😎✌
But people don’t buy cars outright new anymore 🤦♂️ how many people do you know buy their cars outright?
Super cheap to lease one of these though