DavidY

I see that VW has announced some things about the Golf facelift. I wonder how much of the same we can expect for the Octavia facelift when it is announced next month...? I've been wondering about EVs but would be sorely tempted by the PHEV if Skoda do an Octavia estate with the same claimed electric range of 62 miles (100km?) as (according to this article) the Golf GTE hatch (and I guess the new Superb estate). https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/volkswagen/golf/362087/new-2024-volkswagen-golf-facelift-arrives-updated-styling-and-improved-tech

There was a trailer on the Skoda YouTube channel saying that a face-lifted Octavia would be announced in February. Maybe that's related to the changeover mentioned?

I see Skoda have started teasing the Octavia facelift on YouTube. According to this the official unveiling will be in February. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAoJEL7hWas

I think the suggestion was that "hold"ing the paddle - which I assume is a long pull instead of a short one - might change the regen without changing gear? I have a Mk3 with DSG and I do like the coasting feature on some roads. It's not very good in stop-start congested urban traffic but if you're lucky enough to drive on a fairly quiet national speed limit road, it can be great. I'm sure they did the maths that it saves fuel (otherwise why bother building the feature) and this was with an ICE car where the engine is idling all the time - a hybrid would be even better as the ICE could presumably stop completely. But I don't see any logic to remove the coasting option from hybrids, as long as the regen can be controlled so you don't end up braking later. On the right road, if you have kinetic energy it's always going to be most efficient to keep it as kinetic energy as long as that's what you need. Converting to electrical energy is always going to waste some of it and be less efficient than coasting (but more efficient than braking).

I don't have an IV myself, but according to this comment you can hold the left paddle to start manual regen, and hold right to return to auto mode.

I thought the Leon PHEVs would have the same availability problems which caused the Octavia IV to be withdrawn? I imagine there is (or if not yet, soon will be) a Peugeot 308 PHEV Estate to go with the Astra Estate as I think these days they are based on the same platform?

Thanks for this - it's interesting information. I'm not sure where the VW/Seat equivalents are in their model cycle, but there were spyshots last year of a face-lifted Octavia. Originally I think it was due to appear in 2023 but I assume 2024 is more likely now. But I wonder if they will keep the PHEV/IV Octavias until the face-lifted version is announced.

Where are you seeing the IV models listed? The last UK brochure I have for Octavias is from April 2023, and the IV (hybrid) models have been deleted from the Octavia price list in that brochure as far as I can tell. Those IV power unit options for Octavias have also disappeared from the UK car configurator.

I also hope the OP will come back in a year or so, after he has had the Toyota hybrid for a while, and report how well the non-plugin-hybrid compares with the IV.

As the OP currently has a hybrid estate and has ordered a hybrid estate, I assume he was looking at Skoda hybrid estates, which (in the UK at least) are no longer available for order, with only 6 (2 Octavias & 4 Superbs) on that site. I'm not sure when Skoda stopped taking orders but the Octavia IVs had disappeared by the October 2022 UK brochure. So those 2 new Octavia IV estates left in the country shown on that site are unlikely to be replenished in any great numbers any time soon (maybe the odd cancelled order), and with the way supply and demand works, I can't believe the dealers who have them are offering much in the way of a discount, so I imagine you'd be looking at the retail price of 38K give or take a few quid. It looks like there are also 4 Superb IV estates on that site, but the prices seem to start at 45K and go up to 51.7K, and I assume the situation will be similar for discounts. Meanwhile What Car's site suggests you can get even the most expensive trim of Corolla Hybrid Estate for a target price a little over 35K (after a £2.7K discount), and that would be with full choice of options and colours etc. Skoda have got a good reputation for estate cars - well deserved from my experience up to now - but if you want a hybrid estate car right now or in the next few months, the points on poor availability and pricing of Skodas seem pretty valid to me. I don't think this is entirely Skoda's fault, but they have ended up in a position which isn't great in terms of the range they can offer.

Depending which bit of that press pack you read, I think it says the new model would be 4.6 or 4.7 metres. But, while I don't have a brochure to hand to check it, I thought current Octavia Estates were already nearly 4.7 metres?

One of the models in that announcement is the "Combi" which is described as a 4.6/4.7 metre estate car, and not an SUV. The catch is that it's slated for 2026 so we've a little while to wait to find out what the reality looks like. One risk of EV packaging for estates is when a manufacturer packs the battery cells as an even layer under the floor, which then steals all the rear passenger foot space. (I've seen reviews of the MG5 estate which suggests this is a problem with that model). Because SUVs are conveniently taller, it is easier to leave sensible foot space in that body style, which I suspect is part of the reason why EV SUVs are common. Presumably you could in theory have battery cells under the floor which aren't a simple flat layer of battery, and instead leave gaps for people's feet, but I'm not sure if any cars do this at present (?)

There's a link to the Press Kit in this post: I downloaded the press kit thing and as an Octavia Estate owner, I noticed Octavia facelift in "early 2024" (in one of the items on branding) New 4.7 metre long EV estate model called the"Combi" in 2026.

I don't know if it's any use to you now, but it looks like I had a copy of the July 2021 brochure saved. I have the SE Technology one too if that's useful (but too big to attach to this post alongside the other one). SKODA_OCTAVIA_Brochure_JULY21.pdf

I saw something that suggests an Octavia facelift is coming in 2023. I wonder if they already have as many orders for current IVs as they can fulfil before the point they will need to swap over to production of the facelifted model?

I'm assuming that on a long journey which is more than the electric range (where you know you'll be using petrol sooner or later at some point) on a cold day there's a good case to run the petrol engine early on, and then you can use that heat for a while instead of burning electricity to make heat?

One problem which plug-in hybrids bring is that it's really hard to quote an MPG figure which is meaningful to someone else's usage. If one person only ever makes 20 mile journeys and can charge at the end of each one, then they could presumably have almost infinite MPG in an Octavia IV . Someone else may make journeys over very similar roads but only be able to charge every 100 miles; their MPG would be a lot worse in the exact same car. So unless you have pretty detailed info on usage (and it would take someone much more diligent than me to collect that sort of info on how I used my car), an MPG figure on its own for a PHEV can be pretty meaningless to another driver. There was always some variation when quoting MPG for a petrol or diesel car; for example some people may drive mostly around town when others spend more of their time on motorways, but PHEVs make the variation much wider. So I think the best way to measure economy and have some hope of it being meaningful to others is to quote 2 figures: "pure EV range", and "battery empty MPG" (what MPG do you get after flattening the battery). That way you can apply those figures to your own typical usage and get some idea of economy to expect. But also I appreciate that running down the battery and then using petrol may not be the most efficient way to use the car so many people may not drive their cars in a way which make those figures easy to collect, unless they are specifically setting out to test the car's economy (eg. as a car magazine might do). It's tricky...

Ah very interesting. I hadn't thought of the usability impacts of a system with a variable amount of regen which you can't always predict. My DSG Octavia (early Mk3) has the freewheeling "Eco mode" functionality too - I do feel that on some roads it's a real benefit, although not so much in urban environment. Do I take it that the IV no longer freewheels when it thinks regen isn't required? That's a useful tip. As someone who doesn't have an IV (yet??) I have browsed bits of the online manual, but I hadn't come across that info.

I don't have an IV (I am contemplating one at some point) but I was interested in how the auto regen works? I as understand it (screenshot from manual below), as long as you specify the right options, it uses the Satnav and sign recognition etc to figure out what the situation is ahead and then sets regen levels accordingly. So I guess if you're coming up to a roundabout, the regen is quite strong? If so, it's interesting as it means you do need to keep the Satnav up to date to make the car function properly? If you just ignore updating the car Satnav, and use Google maps or whatever (as I suspect many people do for navigation purposes) , the car presumably won't drive as efficiently?

The all-caps there suggests you may share the same worries as I have about real range of EVs on a long journey. I don't know how the WLTP range for an EV translates to 200 miles of motorway driving in the coldest day in December for instance. For an ICE car like my current Octy diesel, I see my best MPG figures economy on a long motorway run; I can just about beat its "official" (pre-WLTP) figures on a run like that. But in urban driving etc. I can never get near those figures. This must bring down the official MPG figures quite a lot;. So the official MPG for an ICE is made up of good economy at constant speeds on fast roads but poor economy in urban areas. But for EVs, they are much better than ICEs in stop-start urban traffic because of the regen. I imagine the official range figure for an EV is the other way around to an ICE; made up of good figures in urban areas, but poor economy at constant speeds on fast roads. Which means if you want to exercise your EV's range by long journeys on fast roads, it could be much more disappointing (compared to the official economy figure), than the ratio you'd get for an ICE. This video is interesting - a big battery Enyaq (official range 318 miles on that particular model) could only manage an estimated 200 miles range at 70mph, and that's before any lights or heating were switched on. Despite the claimed 300mile plus range, that guaranteed 200 mile range seemingly isn't there for any Enyaq. https://youtu.be/mmQJUW-VyRY?t=1161 The problem is that (as above) the current crop of full EVs have such mediocre range, and I'm not sure even the really expensive one's are that great. Whereas a PHEV is much more likely to get you there on one tank. A Range Extender may have to do a petrol station stop on a long journey (will be interesting to see the specs of that MX-30) but that will only take 5 minutes. The cost of those big batteries also drives the price up. If Mazda do release a Range Extender in the UK it will be interesting to see how much the petrol engine+generator increase the price compared to the cost of increasing the battery. The MX-30 is already quite cheap compared to many EVs, presumably because the battery is so small. The extra weight of petrol to give a 400 mile range compared to a 100 mile range is much, much less than the weight of EV batteries you'd need to give the same increase.

I'm interested in the Mazda MX-30 which will reportedly have a version added to the range with a small rotary engine as a range extender. I really like the idea of a smaller, lighter, battery (the current EV version has 120-odd miles of WLTP range I think) which is capable of most journeys, plus petrol to kick in for those fewer days when you make longer trips. For instance I often make 80 mile round trips (maybe twice a week on average) but occasionally (but several times a year) drive 200 miles (and then the same to return on a later day). For me, I think a range extender would potentially be even greener than an EV in terms of energy use, as I wouldn't be lugging round the weight of a big battery pack all the time when most days you don't need it. Sure the petrol would kick in occasionally but as a % of miles it would be so low that it I suspect it would compare well against the extra energy cost of lugging that big battery. The only problem is the MX-30 seems like such an impractical design of car (eg rear doors won't open without front doors, and despite SUV looks, not that much actual space. If someone put a range-extender power train in something like my Octy estate they could just take my money.

Hi Vahids, As mentioned above I cleared the code but it came back - so I was thinking I'd need to ask the dealer to check it... but then not many weeks later the rain sensor started working again and I've not noticed it failing again. (Also I suspected there wouldn't be much point asking the dealer to diagnose when it's working, so I didn't mention it to them when service time came around.) So I'm sorry I'm probably not much help to you. 😞

Ah interesting - thanks for that. I was trying to be too clever and look for one of the options on the formatting bar at the top (and was using the Link option from up there). 🙃 I didn't think to just paste it in and see what happens...

Thanks for the video link - I think it does demonstrate that the underseat space for feet is limited - for a short journey (eg many journeys you'd make in a taxi) I think it wouldn't be a problem, but for a long journey I think it would be annoying and perhaps start to feel cramped. However I did come across this Skoda event from June in which they strongly hinted they are planning to make an Octavia EV estate - which has to be a strong contender for "just take my money now" although I do note that folks over in the Mk4 Octavia forum are finding more problems with the tech than I'd like to see. https://youtu.be/lcGRnpWdxog?t=1294 Also - it may not exist until at least 2025 so it's a bit long to wait and plenty of time for plans to change - the aforementioned Fabia Estate was supposed to be a future model not so long ago. Off topic- what is the best way to paste Youtube links into posts in the forum? I spent more time on Briskoda when it was on some earlier forum software (vBulletin??) but not figured out how to do it here?

Having a small car doesn't necessarily mean you usually make short journeys (I usually made long ones) and one reason I liked the old Mk1 Fabia was you could get nice long range from it - 500+miles from a tank of diesel would be fairly easy. So Fabia Estate EV with a claimed 200 mile range (remembering that EV range is much more variable due to temperamental/ temperature sensitive batteries) would be hopeless for me. Crossover EVs are just as bad, as you say, though. This video reckons that cheap small cars won't exist soon - with Euro 7 regulations (as mentioned in the AutoExpress article on the Fabia) being part of the problem. I'm not convinced by the idea of an estate car with batteries under the floor though- from what I've seen, the MG 5 estate for instance doesn't let rear passengers stick their feet under the front seats, which means you effectively have less comfortable legroom even if the distance from the back seat backrest to back of front seat doesn't look too bad.