![]() It’s not without problems, but might just do the job. If you’re looking at one of those, try the Seat too. ![]() Sounds like a lot for a family hatchback, but it represents a worthy saving over more ‘premium’ rivals like the Mercedes A250e, Audi A3 TFSIe, Golf GTE and, ahem, Cupra Leon. Prices start at just shy of £31,000 for the FR tested here, but you can spend upwards of £34,000 for the top-spec Xcellence Lux. If you want to go from electric to hybrid (which you will, often), or normal to sport, you have to dive into the touchscreen. And that’s especially annoying when there are no physical controls for the powertrain. Oh and while the Leon’s infotainment system looks the part, with colourful crisp graphics, it isn’t very user friendly. The boot is 100 litres smaller than a normal Leon’s because of the battery, which is a pain. Stable on the motorway, though, with wind- and road-noise kept to a minimum. And body control is good but the ride is too brittle over rougher tarmac. The steering is quick and accurate but ultimately a bit wispy. ![]() Agile and light on its feet, if not as involving as a Ford Focus. You can’t manually adjust the regen – the Leon does what it wants.ĭespite a bit of extra weight, the Leon still handles well. The brakes are a bit grabby, but that’s par for the course with plug-in hybrids. By and large it does a good job, but can hang on to gears for too long after bursts of acceleration. There are paddles on the back of the steering wheel for shifting manually, but the gearbox doesn’t respond very quickly to your inputs so you’re better off leaving it to its own devices. Performance is fine, but the Leon doesn’t necessarily feel as quick as the numbers suggest. At low or constant rpm the internal combustion engine is quiet enough, but push beyond 3,000 and it starts to sound thrashy. Same goes for when you’re fresh out of electricity – it’ll still shut down the engine if it can when you’re coasting or braking. In hybrid mode the Leon swaps between petrol and electric power often as it sees fit. #Captur laddhybrid fullDo so and the transition from electric to petrol power (with electrical assistance) is smooth but takes a second to take full effect and push you down the road at pace. Keeping the engine out of it when you’re running in electric mode is easy enough – it won’t spring to life unless you really floor the throttle. Just remember the faster you go, the sooner you’ll run out of juice and have to call upon the 1.4-litre petrol engine. Far from quick, but performance in electric mode is entirely adequate up to the national speed limit. No nasty jolts from the transmission as it moves through the gears. Which is pretty good.Īdmirably smooth in electric mode which, like virtually all PHEVs, it defaults to when you switch it on (assuming there’s enough charge in the battery). ![]() While I don’t think you could eek out 40 miles unless you drove especially gingerly, more than 30 seems achievable. But I wasn’t driving economically and it was cold, so I had the heater on. Incidentally that’s exactly what the Leon said it could do before I set off. Know this – from a fully-charged battery, on a six-degree December day on a relatively swift cross-country drive, I managed 25 miles. ![]() Your driving style, the kinds of roads you use, the weather and whether or not you’re using the air conditioning. Hard to say, because it depends on so many different factors. How far will it actually go in electric mode? ![]()
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