Used Volkswagen e-Up review

The Volkswagen e-Up is quietly brilliant, both literally and figuratively. It’s quieter around town than a petrol Up, not that the petrol car’s thrummy three-cylinder noises are unpleasant, but it also probably doesn’t get the credit it deserves.

The e-Up launched in 2014 and quietly went about its business for a few years. Then, in 2020, Volkswagen fitted a new battery that’s almost double the size of the previous one. These are the ones you want, because the range figure jumped from 100 to 160 miles – a figure that’s still competitive with some small EVs even now.

A major sticking point when the car was available new was how expensive it was. In January 2020, a basic five-door petrol Up started at £12,840, while the e-Up started at £19,695 – and that was after the £3,500 Plug-in Car Grant of the time. The good news for you as a used buyer is that e-Ups are now cheaper than equivalent petrol versions.

And you get the benefits of even cheaper running costs, perkier performance and a much longer list of standard equipment than the petrol car.

Despite feeling old now, the e-Up is still one of the best options if you want something that’s easy to park and you mainly drive around town. You might also consider the Dacia Spring, Fiat 500e, Mini Electric and Renault Zoe, and maybe even the oddball Mazda MX-30.

Get the e-Up in a fun colour and you’ll enjoy a pop of that colour on the top of the doors. Bringing the outside in, as Kirstie Allsopp might say. But it adds a fun factor that stops the cabin feeling too drab. There’s also a dotty dash trim panel that’s exclusive to the e-Up, while everything else is largely the same as the petrol Up.

If you’ve driven a few EVs, you’ll find it strange that the e-Up has both a key that needs to be inserted into a slot and turned, and a manual handbrake. That’s the same as in the Dacia Spring, but it means the e-Up and Spring feel a lot older than something like a 500e or MX-30.

Look through the multifunction steering wheel and the dials look very similar to the petrol Up. There’s still a big speedo in the middle, and what looks like a rev counter – it’s actually a power gauge, and you can watch it shoot up if you put your foot to the floor. On the right is the same massive fuel gauge as the petrol one, re-done to show your remaining battery percentage. With such a big dial and a fairly small range estimate, you can almost see your battery charge draining in real time.

To justify its high price when new, the electric e-Up comes stuffed with kit. There’s a reversing camera (with an adorable thumbnail-sized display), a height-adjustable passenger seat, cruise control, access to an app with specific charging functions, and auto lights and wipers.

It’s impressive that the e-Up is just as practical as the regular Up, despite having a bulky 36.8kWh battery to hide. So you still get the space for four adults and the 251-litre boot, in a package that’s supremely easy to park.

The e-Up has only ever been available as a five-door car in the UK, so all make it easy (for an Up) to get into the back seats.

As the Up is an old car and based on a petrol model, upfront storage isn’t as good as it could be. The big gearlever and handbrake both take up space – in newer rivals these are buttons to free up a lot of usable storage space between the front seats. The Dacia Spring, for example, has room to put a small rucksack on the floor where the centre console would be.

However, the e-Up has split-fold rear seats, whereas the Spring has a one-piece bench, so the e-Up will be more useful if you need to take a passenger and extra luggage.

There’s no frunk under the bonnet – everything under there is very tightly packaged – so you’ll probably need to store your charging cable in the boot, which isn’t particularly neat and means some of the overall capacity is taken up.

As a car that’s predominantly going to be used for commuting or cross-town trips, the e-Up’s 160-mile quoted range is more than sufficient. It’s a little more than the 140-mile estimate of the Dacia Spring and the 120 or so miles on offer in the last-generation Mini Electric and Mazda MX-30, but slightly down on the big-battery Fiat 500e or something bigger like the Peugeot e-208.

Just like any small EV, the e-Up will give you considerably less range on the motorway, and expect the range to drop by about 25% in cold weather when the battery is less efficient. There are four levels of brake regeneration and an Eco+ driving mode to eke out the most range.

The e-Up offers 40kW fast-charging, which is enough to take you from 0-80% in an hour. Clearly, you wouldn’t be wanting to do this every day unless you have a particular fondness for motorway service stations, but for the odd long journey it shouldn’t be too inconvenient. Charging at home will be significantly cheaper than out and about, with a home top-up likely to only cost a few pounds.

Powering the wheels is an 82hp motor, making the e-Up considerably more powerful than the standard petrol model. And it feels even quicker than the numbers suggest, because the e-Up gives you all its power from the word go. Top speed, if you ever want to reach it, is 81mph.

To counter the extra weight of the battery back, the e-Up has a firmer ride than the petrol model, although it’s never uncomfortable. There’s a noticeable amount of tyre noise, which is more obvious in the e-Up because there’s no petrol engine producing noise and vibration up front. Wind noise isn’t too bad, though.

We tested the e-Up straight after driving the Dacia Spring, and the VW handles much better than the Dacia. The Up’s body control is much tighter, the steering is better and it makes the Spring feel wayward in comparison. The Up manages to have the sturdy and solid feel that all VWs have.

With a decent slug of power and the Up’s short wheelbase, it’s genuinely quite fun to chuck the e-Up around.