Living with a Skoda Enyaq iV (Month 5)

The Skoda Enyaq iV offers fantastic value for money for those looking to go electric. Frankly, you’d easily spend £40,000 on a petrol or diesel family SUV, so to find an electric one that costs the same is astounding, and puts the Enyaq iV about five years ahead of the competition.
Our version is the 80 (meaning an 82kWh electric car battery, whatever that actually means to most people). This also means more power (204 horsepower) and greater range (up to 331 miles - we’ll see) than the 60 model, which at the time of writing isn’t currently available to order. We’ve tested both previously and, although we prefer the way the 60 handles, living with a car is a different thing. Here we’re looking for maximum range now above all else, so we’re happy with the 80, especially as neither version will charge to 100 per cent in the five-hour window of off-peak electricity when charging at home. As I can’t get a full charge either way in one night I’ll go for the bigger range, regardless of how long it takes. Skip to: Month 1 – The full package? Month 2 – “It’s not a bad life” Month 3 – Going the distance Month 4 – (Mainly) happy campers Month 5 – Surprise and (continued) delight

Our Enyaq iV has arrived in EcoSuite trim, which sits between basic Loft and more expensive Sportline and, as the name suggests, takes on board an extra level of eco-friendly design. So, you get the eco-leather which uses olive leaves for its tanning process as opposed to chemicals, and a high degree of recycled materials. Even with five additional packages on board (see options fitted, above), you still don’t reach £50,000, and only one bundle breaks the £1,000 mark.
The Assisted Drive Package is the most useful one to have - it gives you adaptive cruise control, blind spot detection and lane assist, and an emergency call button if you’ve got the “Plus” part of the pack. Which is all the additional safety functions I want on a car. The Drive Sport Package with its fancy steering wheel and Light and View Package with its full LED matrix fandango, I could do without. As for the Parking Package with front parking sensors and rear-view camera … depends what sort of parker you are. Frankly, I go with “nice luxury but could forgo” on the basis the Enyaq iV has pretty good visibility as it is. I’d also tick the Convenience Package (basic version) with its wireless charging and privacy glass. And we’re suckers for a panoramic sunroof in our household. If you’ve got any budget left over, I’d recommend the Infotainment Package Plus because it gets the head-up display for to show both your current speed the limit. Our car is black paintwork and cognac leather inside. It’s not a combo I’d have gone for as it feels quite dark and masculine, but actually it’s got an Italian suit vibe going on and feels like I should be driving it through Milan on my way to my job at a hedge fund. Which is surely not where Skoda ever saw itself any time within living memory. Back to top

Mileage: 5,021

The claimed maximum range of the Enyaq 80 is 329 miles but we've yet to see more than 298 miles indicated by the car on a full charge. It calculates your maximum range based on your driving history, so I'm hoping with a gentle right foot we'll nudge it up over time. There’s an annoying rattle in the roof lining that’s been getting worse, but I’ve finally located the issue. When the screen over the sunroof retracts it rubs against its housing. The solution has been just to keep the screen drawn, which is needed anyway to keep the car cooler in the sun, and we don’t open the sunroof much because we can’t get to grips with the way the electronic slider works to tilt or fully open it. It drives us mad, so we’ve decided to leave the whole thing alone. The main speaker for the music in the dashboard also has a nasty vibration when a song with a lot of bass comes on (we’re not talking hardcore dub, just some Paul Simon!) which is a bit disappointing. And neither my partner nor I can bear the way the climate control is set up. When you press the “clima” button, the screen automatically goes to the smart climate functions, like “cool my feet” or “warm my hands”. If you just want to do normal things like turn the air-con on or off, or adjust where the air is coming from, you’ve got to press another button to get to standard temperature control. One more annoyance is that the Apple CarPlay function doesn’t always connect, but that seems to happen with almost every new car on the road, so Skoda is no worse than the competition. On the up-side I love the huge size of the screen and, when the whole things switches to smartphone mirroring, you get a massive set of graphics to work with. The Enyaq iV also feels like a really smart, plush car inside. The kids beg me to take them to school in it because they say it feels so impressive to sit in – it’s spacious and posh with its tan leather, large screen and wide dash. We also made use of the in-car umbrella the other day when my nine-year-old and I got caught in the rain while out shopping. I suddenly remembered Skodas come with an umbrella in the door, like Rolls-Royces, and, bingo, there it was. My son was beyond delight. Which reminds me, it’s probably still sitting furled up, wet, in the door. A final nod this month, for the boot space for large dogs. We’ve taken the parcel shelf out and our Labrador is very happy in the rear, leaping in and out and lying down after his walks. My children lower the central seat back squab so they can chat to him through the opening en route to school. It’s not a bad life. Back to top

Mileage: 8,519

The range of the Enyaq is really good, despite the fact we haven't seen anywhere near the claimed 330 miles maximum. In fact, the best case so far shown at 100 per cent charged is 290 miles. That figure is based on your previous journey, so if that was a steady speed on a motorway, for example, it will guesstimate a lower maximum range on the next charge. In other words, it's the same as the car calculating miles per gallon (mpg) as your consumption figure - the distance achievable goes up and down according to how you drive and in what conditions. At first, I was disappointed by not seeing that magic 300 miles displayed on a full charge, but 290 miles seems true to its word, and, stupid as it sounds, I've been surprised by what that actually means in the real world. I live in Kent and have driven the Skoda to Heathrow and back for a holiday, parking it in the long stay carpark for a week. And, no, it doesn't lose charge when parked. I've also taken it to Essex multiple times to see family north of Chelmsford, zipping along on the M25, air-con on with little opportunity to recover energy through braking but with no worries at all about getting home. I even put it into Sport mode a couple of times, which doesn't do an awful lot to change the driving characteristics but, I guess, this is a family SUV. My partner hates the infotainment screen, and it's not the best. If you drive a recent Skoda, Seat or VW, you'll be familiar with it. It's too complicated for its own good, and requires several steps for some simple stuff, like turning the air-con on or off - you must go to "Clima" (at least it's an actual button) then hit "Classic AC" to get to a standard row of options. Sometimes the sound doesn't work for the Apple CarPlay and we'd prefer a simple volume button rather than the touch-sensitive slider at the bottom of the screen. But the Enyaq is a very commodious, very comfy car. The kids and I breathe a sigh of relief every time we get into it. It genuinely feels like a premium proposition with its tan leather, large screen, huge sunroof, space and light. Most importantly, it's the first electric car we've owned which doesn't feel like a hairshirt option, on the basis it can go the distance on decent motorway trips and long weekends away. Back to top

We swapped our Enyaq for another from Skoda for a special camping trip last month, the two cars fundamentally the same bar red paint for this one (which suits the car’s looks) and a few special modifications. These included a neat topbox-mounted roof tent, plus a custom Egoe kitchen unit that slides out from the boot. Heading to Bestival in Telford from home in Kent for two days of festival fun seemed the perfect test, with room for four to camp in comfort with the combination of the roof tent and an additional double bed fitted over the folded rear seats.
The kitchen in the boot pulls out as a drawer from the bespoke wooden box, and contains a sink, tap, water storage, gas stove (with canisters) plus a full set of crockery and cutlery. To top it all off, the work-surface lids of the storage spaces flip over to reveal chess and backgammon boards. It's unbelievably compact and chic. Such is the storage of the Enyaq's boot, there's also room for two folding chairs and a ladder to the roof tent. We're still getting about 290 miles maximum range from the regular 80kW Enyaq, so charged at home overnight with a stop on the M40 at a Gridserve point to top up. We would have got there on one charge but with nothing left over for emergencies. Suffice to say, using the public charging network was not a great experience. Only one point was working, and four cars were queueing. It was all very stressful, but that's not Skoda's fault - the Enyaq still offers one of the farthest ranges on one charge and is definitely the best-value pure electric family SUV out there right now. We had an ace time at Bestival, enhanced by the fact that I took the roof tent for myself and my partner took the double mattress inside the car. Sadly, he had to lie still all night with a banging hangover because the Enyaq locks itself after a while, and every time he moved, the alarm went off. He couldn't figure out how to turn it off and attempts to text me were thwarted by the fact I'd passed out after dancing to Fat Boy Slim and was cosily ensconced ‘upstairs’. He was broken the next morning. I was fresh as a daisy. We stopped on the way home to charge the car again, and this time ventured off the motorway to a Shell Recharge station having consulted ZapMap. It was less than ideal to sit in the car for an hour with a hangover on a Sunday morning, and it's frustrating to hear people talk about ‘only’ having to stop for 20-30 mins to recharge a car. That's on a rapid charger, which there aren't many of, and assumes you manage to stop and charge before your battery state dips below 20 per cent, at which point charging is way slower. The main thing, though, is who the hell wants to stop mid-journey for half an hour, for a job that is done in a petrol or diesel car in two minutes? Let's be clear. Electric cars like the Enyaq are fantastic, and home charging is brilliantly cheap, but public charging is still a mess. Back to top

I keep discovering little "surprise and delight" features in the Skoda that make it more luxurious by the day. For instance, I only just worked out that you can change the colour of the interior light strips (carmakers call it "ambient lighting") to pretty much anything you desire. For balance in a household of five males (six, if you include the dog) I've changed it to bright pink, so the whole car glows inside after dark.
The Enyaq is also the only SUV I've discovered with a boot both big enough and low enough for two elderly Labradors to clamber in and out of and lie down in comfort en route to walkies. Saying that I wish the tailgate closed more easily - it needs a hefty thump and we keep getting in to the car, only to discover that the tailgate is still ajar. Also, all four door bins have a handy section that's big enough for the massive water bottles that my sons seem to require after every football match. It's all these little things that add up to a satisfying ownership experience. The main niggle this month is that we still haven't been able to sort the charging timer on the car so that it only charges when I have cheap off-peak electricity at home between midnight and 5am. I can see how to do it, but it's not working for some reason and neither is the timer on the app for my Pod Point home charger. So, I just have to plug it in before bed and accept a couple of hours’ of expensive charging before the midnight-5am off-peak period and then afterwards before I come down and unplug it in the morning. In fairness as my home charger charges at a rate of about 12 miles per hour I normally need 10pm-7am anyway just to put 60-70 per cent into the battery. Also, this month we have a warning light and beep for a rear right tyre with low pressure – good that the car specifies which wheel is low rather than just throwing up a generic yellow light. I've checked the pressures and they seem fine, so will now have to work out how to reset the sensors. I might also need to start the deep-clean process as we only have one month left before the car geos back and various boys and dogs have left their odour. The seats, however, with their eco-suite tan leather, have fared very well and are easily wiped clean. Back to top