DavidY

I am a former Skoda owner these days, but my Seat Leon PHEV (which I think has similar systems to the latest Superbs) had a "grey globe" after I parked it in a car park for several hours where there was no signal. I don't park there regularly but after I'd left it took a long time (nearly a day?) for the white globe to come back. See my post on this thread: https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/534961-car-not-connecting-to-internet/#comment-5986203 The rest of the thread may be useful to you too if you've not seen it yet. My theory was that if it can't "phone home" due to poor signal, the car stops trying to use the mobile signal after a while, to preserve the 12V battery, perhaps more so with the PHEVs. If it can't find a signal, it feels like the car gives up for a while - maybe until the next day, maybe for 24 hours? I wonder if there's an option in the infotainment to turn off remote connectivity when you park if you know there's going to be no signal, to stop it trying to connect and failing? You'd lose remote access to the car (but you may not have that anyway) but it may be happier to connect when you come back?

Ah - just to clarify the "AC"s ... are you saying the Air Conditioning/Heating doesn't work during Alternate Current charging? That explains something I've seen on my 1.5 PHEV this week (I don't actually have a Skoda any more but it's still a VW Group car so I assume I have a very similar system). When charging from AC, I started the heating from the app but the charging then stopped.

I'm a bit of an interloper these days as I swapped my last Skoda for a Seat Leon 1.5 eHybrid, but that's probably sharing a few components with the latest Superb IVs. But I found Seat Digital Support were pretty helpful when I emailed them with a "grey globe" issue, so maybe Skoda have an equivalent digital team who may help if you contact customer services? Also - this is possibly a silly question - but what is the phone signal like where you park your car? The reason I ask about parking is that I had the "grey globe" a few weeks ago when I parked for several hours in a car park with no phone signal. Even when I drove away and parked in places with a better signal, and locked and unlocked the car etc, I couldn't get rid of the grey globe. My theory was that if it can't "phone home" due to poor signal, the car stops trying to use the mobile signal after a while, to preserve the 12V battery, perhaps more so with the PHEVs. If it can't find a signal, it feels like the car gives up for a while - maybe until the next day, maybe for 24 hours? In my case the white globe came back the next day, but even then it wasn't automatic. For my SEAT there's a "Users" option in Infotainment and I seem to remember I used the option to "sync" my user account, and that eventually worked and this also made the globe white again. However this hadn't worked the day before when I'd tried it several times, and I think had not worked a few times on the second day too, so maybe this was just luck with the timing and it would have come back anyway on its own. But if the Superb has a Users option and a Sync option within that, it's worth a try? But may not work the first few times. I did also wonder if taking control and deliberately disabling those services in Infotainment for a day, and then enabling 24 hours later, somewhere with a good signal, may also be a way to reset the cycle if the car is deliberately trying to preserve the battery? But that's just an idea in my head- I've never tried it. I also think lock and unlock generally make my car phone home so perhaps locking the car and unlocking several minutes later (after everything has properly shut down) may provoke it to connect, possibly in conjunction with the above?

Thanks for that. The "charging locations" are described in my Leon's manual as something I can set up in the infotainment. And then I can assign a schedule with a location, with a departure time.... or at least I could if this functionality existed yet... For my Leon it's part of the missing "Schedule" menu option on the Infotainment screen. I guess it might appear in the MySEAT app as well but there's no sign at present. With my Zappi wall-box it can stop and start the charge - to be fair this seems to resume OK when it does this, although you can see that there is a faffing period when the car and wall-box renegotiate things after a restart.

This is so true- there are many settings, especially with the extra complexity of a PHEV, and a checklist would come in very handy.

I have to confess I've defected from Skoda and bought a Seat Leon - which has the 1.5 TSI PHEV setup which I assume is pretty similar to the latest Mk4 Superb IV PHEVs. But I (and others) have a problem with that which sounds pretty similar. I don't know about the Superb manual, but my Leon's manual even describes the scheduling feature and how to use it - but in the actual car those options don't appear in the infotainment. The thread on the Seat Cupra forum is here: https://www.seatcupra.net/forums/threads/e-hybrid-anyone-using-charging-schedules.478388/ The suggestion some months ago was that the Seats may get a software update in Q3 of this year to address this, but we're a couple of months into that and no sign yet.

From a Skoda point of view, I think only one of the Enyaqs creeps below £40K? if you don't mind a smaller boot, Elroqs give you more choice including a bigger battery option. I believe rear seat space in the Elroq is similar to the Enyaq. 75 mile a day commute adds up in service costs and fuel - I used to do a big commute in a Fabia 1.9TD so the aforementioned Polo 1.9TD sounds spot-on! However it's still worth adding up what you pay in fuel per year, as it takes a lot of fuel savings to offset a cost of a new car, and even cheap rate overnight electricity starts to add up if you're using over 20 kWh per working day.

Having had Skodas for over 20 years, I've been tempted away by this month's deals on Seat Leon PHEV estates. I like an estate and wanted to try something I could plug in to charge. But the Superb IV, Passat and ID7 Tourer are physically too big for my driveway, and the MG5 and estate versions of the Astra/308 don't have much rear legroom. Although I believe the Seat Leon hasn't been facelifted lately it does get the latest 1.5 PHEV powertrain as seen in the Superb and Kodiaq. As well as a significantly higher claimed EV range than the older 1.4 TSIs, the 1.5 powertrain has faster charging at home and supports fast DC charging at a service station or similar at a claimed 50kW. If you want a PHEV, these VW group 1.5 TSI PHEVs seem to be one of the best powertrains out there at the moment. The Seat has a claimed WLTP 80 miles of pure EV range (slightly worse than the bigger Superb, curiously), and from the one journey I've driven so far, I reckon 70 miles will be a realistic target to aim for in summer. But for some reason Skoda hasn't seen fit to put that powertrain in the Octavia; which is a shame as I'd have been very tempted if they had. Maybe the lack of facelift (I think?) for the Seat Leon (unlike its Cupra cousin) is why they are on sale at big discounts - there were a few on Autotrader but you might need to be quick as they needed to be registered this month. I still prefer some of the Simply Clever Skoda stuff, and would definitely consider a Skoda in future, so not intending to delete my account here though.

That's not a million miles away from the way coasting works on my Octavia, minus the ability to regen brake of course.

Looking at the configurator, it seems the facelifted Enyaqs are on there - and like the Elroq you don't get paddles any more until you go up to Sportline trim.

My question is really on how much control you have over regen on the models *without* paddles? How well do they coast for instance? My old DSG diesel seems to coast very freely, but that obviously doesn't have an electric motor attached to an axle. Some of the Enyaqs don't have the paddles, including some of the 85s (looking at pictures on Autotrader) but also the Elroqs don't seem to get paddles until you get to higher spec models which are the wrong side of the critical 40K tax threshold. I'm wondering how much importance to attach to the paddles (or lack of) when considering buying something like an Enyaq or Elroq.

Yes it does seem that a lot of the change is to bodywork which will improve aero but not so much under the skin, at least not for the 85 versions - the 60 versions may have more change? That said ( as the video from "Electrifying" points out) they did already make bigger changes to the underlying bits last year when the 80 versions were replaced with the 85. One thing which puts me off the Elroq is that (as I understand the UK specs at least) you can't get paddles for regen/recuperation unless you cross the £40K tax threshold. I don't have an EV, but I'm used to my DSG Octavia which coasts when it sees fit, and I do think that improves economy in free-flowing roads (not so much in urban traffic / traffic jams of course). So my ideal EV would coast most of the time, with regen I could control from the wheel or even trigger with the old-fashioned brake pedal. But I suspect you need an EV with paddles to get them into a coasting mode?

I saw it come up a couple of days ago on their Youtube channel as a forthcoming live event- not had chance to watch it back, I always find it interesting to read the Press Kits for launches like these - although details can vary when it comes to spec of UK-specific models. https://www.skoda-storyboard.com/en/press-kits/new-skoda-enyaq-press-kit/ One snippet I saw was that in "key European markets" people can order the new ones from tomorrow.

I also found this on AutoCar's website - same prices as Listers on a quick glance: https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/skoda/elroq/specs

So, after a bit more searching I found a price list on the Listers website here: https://listers.co.uk/new/cars/skoda/elroq?f=search:true Looks like: Starting price is £31,500, for a 50 SE, with only 232 miles of range Next up is £33,350 for a 60 SE L with 260 miles of range If Listers are correct they are the only SE and SE L models, which seems odd, but I find Skoda's model naming so unfathomable at times that I'm not saying Listers made a mistake... 60 Edition is £34,450 60 Sportline is £37,400 85 Edition is £38,650 - this is the starting price if you want over 300 miles of range (360 quoted) 85 Sportline is £41,600 Plus packs are £1,950 - only available on Edition so I assume the Sportline trim includes whatever is in there Advanced packs are £4,150 on Edition and £2,250 on Sportline - the difference being £1,900 Maxx packs are £5,100 on Edition and £3,200 on Sportline - difference as above. So those Sportline prices above don't tell the whole story. There are cheaper Elroq prices to be had, although the bigger battery models with a decent range still seem pricey to me. With extras the Listers prices look a few hundred cheaper than the Autotrader one, but not vastly different.