Alpine A290 vs Cupra Born

The Cupra Born costs £2,000 more than the Alpine A290. For that premium it adds 66 miles more WLTP range and 59 litres more boot space. On EVcarsguide's combined category scores, the Cupra Born comes out ahead overall.

The Alpine A290 is £2,000 cheaper to buy. The Cupra Born is cheaper to charge, roughly £128 a year versus £184 for the Alpine A290, at 8,000 miles on an off-peak home tariff. Add 5 years of charging and the Alpine A290 comes out roughly £1,720 cheaper overall. These figures cover list price and home charging only - insurance, servicing, tyres and depreciation will move the real total.

EVcarsguide estimates a real-world motorway range of about 155 miles for the Alpine A290 and 250 miles for the Cupra Born - both below their WLTP figures, because sustained high speed is the hardest case for an EV. The Cupra Born goes roughly 96 miles further between charging stops.

The two are within 14 mm on width, so neither is meaningfully easier to thread into a tight space. In a standard 2,400 mm bay that leaves about 591 mm of total clearance for the Cupra Born and about 577 mm of total clearance for the Alpine A290.

Over a 8-year ownership window EVcarsguide's degradation model projects roughly 84% battery health for the Alpine A290 and 84% for the Cupra Born. That is close enough that capacity loss should not decide between them. Both use NMC-type cells, so for daily use keep the charge limit near 80% to slow degradation.