I'd be curious to hear your thoughts behind what made you interested in Cupra Raval. I left the answers as anonymous but you can for example mention below if you want to share your reasons or story as to how you became interested in picking up a Raval or at least become interested in the car.
I'll start with my story, I was initially putting a ~45.000€ budget towards a new EV and was already starting to look up models to consider last summer. Ideally would have picked up some mid-sized hatchback (NOT SUV!) good to drive EV with preferably sporty looks and initially perhaps 3 or 4 options that looked at but since neither option totally fit my preferences particularly well so big compromises would have to be made. I was looking at Mazda 6e which is a nearly 5m big sedan but I like its styling both exterior but particularly interior design spoke to me and liked the huge amount of features/tech included for its asking price but the driving feel left a lot to be desired coming from a Mazda (well no suprise with the chinese joint venture, Deepal model shared platform) and was a bit too big (would be a PITA in my small town with cramped parking spaces all over the place).
Looked also at Tesla Model 3 because whatever political opinion we are of Musk & co. the car delivers a great range/battery & performance for the asking price. I don't either mind the exterior design, it's not superb but could be a lot worse too, would have liked it in the "Ultra Red" (cough Mazda Soul Red cough) black and red color that makes the car look more premium and sporty vs the 75% white Teslas fleet cruising around. Interior again is just going too far down the minimalistic pipe drain, not providing any dashboard screen or headsup display is a bit too much of a letdown, not sure about the missing stalks either (although there's the S3xy stalks that might have been an option too). I'm no huge interior fan of the Tesla, minimalistic & bland and it's hard to support Tesla as a company.
I looked also at Cupra Born but I've never been a fan of the boxy ID.3 style shape, it's not sporty & aggressive enough, even if Cupra managed to make it more sportier and better looking, ultimately the shape still isn't quite going hand in hand with the sporty & aggressive look I typically wanna go for (if I was a car, I'd be a Honda Civic or Mazda 3 if that makes any sense, I like bold aggressive sporty designs). The personally specced Cupra Born had been 46500€+ I believe without winter tyres so in the upper end of spectrum what I had considered to pay.
Enter spring 2026 and Cupra Raval was getting released (it was around the time early spy photos started circling around that it caught my attention as I was not 100% convinced about the concept revealed later, I actually prefer the finalized Raval from a design standpoint). I also had a big challenger I was waiting for to be revealed, the new Hyundai Ioniq 3 that I had big hopes for and was perhaps my biggest interest at the time before launch as the concept car really captured my interest. However directly after launch my hype for it quickly died, looked nowhere as good as the concept and the performance was just shockingly bad, I don't need a performance car but to go backwards from an ICE car 8.0 s 0-100 to 9.5s was just too much of a letdown for an EV, neither did I like the finalized look at all.
Cupra Raval quickly after launch started more and more convince me and more boxes were ticked as more info about it surfaced. I was not really considering a B-segment compact car but thanks to MEB+ platform's spacious interior given its size, it became an alternative especially as my mimimum range and rear seat space requirements were just and just met compared to its closest compact car competitors Renault 5, Alpine A290 and Mini Cooper E which were not pratical (interior space & range) to meet my demands as a primary car, they were strictly city cars only to me meanwhile Raval was practical enough that it can be used as a primary car (for someone driving 90% around town, occasionally to nearby towns too and hardly ever any long distances). To me it felt especially good to now have an option that ticked more/most of my boxes than any other car I had looked at, and that at a significantly lower price too! Ideally I had prefered perhaps a bit mature interior with contrasty two-color soft touch design similar to for example Mazda 6e but at least I get to feel 20-30 yo all over again in Cupra Raval (39 yo guy).
But at least it ticks my boxes as far as exterior design goes extremely well, it has good enough range and interior space for my needs, it definitely seems to match my demand for great driving dynamics & feel while saving a huge amount of money compared to the options I was previously looking at!
I'll start with my story, I was initially putting a ~45.000€ budget towards a new EV and was already starting to look up models to consider last summer. Ideally would have picked up some mid-sized hatchback (NOT SUV!) good to drive EV with preferably sporty looks and initially perhaps 3 or 4 options that looked at but since neither option totally fit my preferences particularly well so big compromises would have to be made. I was looking at Mazda 6e which is a nearly 5m big sedan but I like its styling both exterior but particularly interior design spoke to me and liked the huge amount of features/tech included for its asking price but the driving feel left a lot to be desired coming from a Mazda (well no suprise with the chinese joint venture, Deepal model shared platform) and was a bit too big (would be a PITA in my small town with cramped parking spaces all over the place).
Looked also at Tesla Model 3 because whatever political opinion we are of Musk & co. the car delivers a great range/battery & performance for the asking price. I don't either mind the exterior design, it's not superb but could be a lot worse too, would have liked it in the "Ultra Red" (cough Mazda Soul Red cough) black and red color that makes the car look more premium and sporty vs the 75% white Teslas fleet cruising around. Interior again is just going too far down the minimalistic pipe drain, not providing any dashboard screen or headsup display is a bit too much of a letdown, not sure about the missing stalks either (although there's the S3xy stalks that might have been an option too). I'm no huge interior fan of the Tesla, minimalistic & bland and it's hard to support Tesla as a company.
I looked also at Cupra Born but I've never been a fan of the boxy ID.3 style shape, it's not sporty & aggressive enough, even if Cupra managed to make it more sportier and better looking, ultimately the shape still isn't quite going hand in hand with the sporty & aggressive look I typically wanna go for (if I was a car, I'd be a Honda Civic or Mazda 3 if that makes any sense, I like bold aggressive sporty designs). The personally specced Cupra Born had been 46500€+ I believe without winter tyres so in the upper end of spectrum what I had considered to pay.
Enter spring 2026 and Cupra Raval was getting released (it was around the time early spy photos started circling around that it caught my attention as I was not 100% convinced about the concept revealed later, I actually prefer the finalized Raval from a design standpoint). I also had a big challenger I was waiting for to be revealed, the new Hyundai Ioniq 3 that I had big hopes for and was perhaps my biggest interest at the time before launch as the concept car really captured my interest. However directly after launch my hype for it quickly died, looked nowhere as good as the concept and the performance was just shockingly bad, I don't need a performance car but to go backwards from an ICE car 8.0 s 0-100 to 9.5s was just too much of a letdown for an EV, neither did I like the finalized look at all.
Cupra Raval quickly after launch started more and more convince me and more boxes were ticked as more info about it surfaced. I was not really considering a B-segment compact car but thanks to MEB+ platform's spacious interior given its size, it became an alternative especially as my mimimum range and rear seat space requirements were just and just met compared to its closest compact car competitors Renault 5, Alpine A290 and Mini Cooper E which were not pratical (interior space & range) to meet my demands as a primary car, they were strictly city cars only to me meanwhile Raval was practical enough that it can be used as a primary car (for someone driving 90% around town, occasionally to nearby towns too and hardly ever any long distances). To me it felt especially good to now have an option that ticked more/most of my boxes than any other car I had looked at, and that at a significantly lower price too! Ideally I had prefered perhaps a bit mature interior with contrasty two-color soft touch design similar to for example Mazda 6e but at least I get to feel 20-30 yo all over again in Cupra Raval (39 yo guy).
But at least it ticks my boxes as far as exterior design goes extremely well, it has good enough range and interior space for my needs, it definitely seems to match my demand for great driving dynamics & feel while saving a huge amount of money compared to the options I was previously looking at!
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