Hi Folks,
my summer trip is over. We did 4500 miles from East of the UK to Newcastle, (ferry), Amsterdam, Berlin, Warsaw, Gdansk, Warsaw, Gdansk (you can see the pattern), Warsaw, Amsterdam, (ferry), Newcastle, home.
We got almost fully specced IV60, three people on board and a hell of luggage (because we haven't seen our families for almost two years).
Long story short: I would buy this car again.
Long story longer: I would also modify the spec.
So from the start. I love how this car looks, in-and outside. Let me say that Newcastle border officers were so amazed that THIS is Skoda that they completely ignored the fact that we were carrying WMD (7yo with an urge to resume his Rammstein playlist).
At every single charging point (If we were not alone), someone was there with questions.
It looks crazy good.
Now, interior.
We selected Lodge to have a bright eco-friendly (as much as possible) interior. I love how the fabric knee rest stays soft and cool on extremely hot days (yes, sometimes I am driving in shorts). I used to hate front cupholders, I am still unhappy, but thanks to a really spacious driver zone, I can live with door pocket bottle holders.
The rear bench... well, I can just tell you that thanks to EV architecture and no middle tunnel it's marvellous. I can sit behind myself without any problems and I can switch Isofix mounting while being inside instead of running around the car.
top three packages that you 'must have'.
1) driver assistance - OMG. I love it. really, got the Plus version, this greatly reduces your fatigue on the motorways. All you have to do is to control the environment and squeeze the wheel every 45-60 seconds. Other than that it's almost an autopilot (on motorways). Two negatives: sometimes the system reads speed limits from the past (roadworks?) or from the road above/below. Trust me you don't want to feel an emergency stop to 60 km/h while you were going 164km/h. The second, system is VERY lane centric, so if some safe-distance-sceptic driver wants to cut in front of you, your car will start to slow down only when his beemer hit the middle of the lane. too late. Same case with bikers. The system tends to completely ignore them if they are overtaking you by going next to the edge.
2) light and view - IF you plan to travel at night this is 'night and day' (sorry, I had to). The lights are amazing. One weak spot. IF your motorway got mid-size lane separators, you will blind truck drivers, as the system will not see their main lamps, so will not cut the light. Sorry folks!
3) HUD. shows everything you need in a better way than the main cluster. Sadly AR nav works only with terrible onboard navigation.
Now, what I would change.
I could any day forget about the sleeping package and trunk controlled towing hook to get a motorised tailgate. I hate this hatch. I have to close it twice to make sure it's closed only to discover it's still open when I start the car.
In the past, I was the person who said 'ignore the battery size, charging speed is more important'... and no, or.. yes and no. Because I had to go across Germany (twice) and Poland (four times), I was forced to use motorways, and with a 60kW battery, it was like 1:10h of driving 45minutes of charging, rinse and repeat. The 60 is a perfect size for everyday use, but as soon as you plan some truly serious distances, you should consider a bigger battery, especially if in your country you don't have a lot of really fast chargers. Meeting Tesla owners in a queue for a single 50kW charger is not a pleasant experience. Because I don't plan to repeat this trip next year I am fine with my 60. But I was really surprised how hard is to find a fast charger when you need one.
What I miss:
* rear bench domestic plug (for the UK spec). Seriously, we paid the same price, continental Europe got the plug, we got a cover. On the longer trips, you really want to plug in your laptop while you are charging your car for the sixth time.
* A/Ced compartment. this is an EV. having a small cooled compartment in the glovebox or in the armrest is something that sounds like a natural idea, you don't have to care about power! but no.
* 40/20/40 split and adjustable rear bench. Like I showed in my previous posts you lose a lot of space because of rear seats angle. If you could make them more upright the trunk would be so much more useful
What I don't like, also known as 'the first world problems list':
* laura.
* central cluster, lucky for me I got HUD, but listen. On your central cluster you can't find information about the current status of the battery (in percentage), you can't check your energy usage (in m/kW or kW/100km), but you can see that you have a charging port on the right!! and that you can have D or B mode. No seriously. You have a constant reminder that the charging port is on the right. Like you forgot about that since last charging, it was yesterday after all.
* right thumb fidget spinner. If you buy a driver assistance package the controller under the most powerful finger of your body is obsolete, to compensate that Skoda decided to hide ACC distance controller at the top of an additional controller on the left side, constantly hidden behind the steering wheel. Why? Because **** logic (or because we decided to reuse some parts from older models).
* shutting down the car instantly after raising your butt from the seat. As a UK driver on my continental Europe trip I had to leave my seat to pick up motorway toll ticket, parking entry ticket, buzz myself in, pickup my sweet chilli twister, venti latte macchiato with double caramel, triple espresso and pumpkin spice at least four times a day. and after every single raising my bum off the seat I had to wait two minutes to reconnect my android auto, resume navigation, restore ev notify. because the car wanted to save 0.0000000001kWh of energy.
* laura.
* single wireless charging mat without any ventilation - self-explanatory. after 10 hours I decided to switch to cable. I could not afford to get my phone exploded.
* touch-sensitive control for the roof. the worst solution ever. if only some assistant could open and close the roof for you, or wait...
* laura - the most useless part of the car
* rear window wiper - you waste 80% of liquid because the jet is so much on the left
* front window jets - fine in the UK, but above 120km/h they hardly hit the middle of the window
* shortcut buttons - they work as a separate layer, which means that if you press clima button, and then you want to switch to android auto with the favourite bar, you have to close the clima menu by clicking the button again even if the shortcut is still visible.
* user experience of infotainment - best example, climate control. you got three controls for each seat, blue minus, a numeric representation of temperature, red plus. Now my expectation, if I press blue minus, the temperature is reduced by half of the degree, if I press the number I got a numeric selection, the red plus increase the temp by a half degree. Easy, right? NO! pressing anything turns the screen to almost black, then you can select temperature from numeric selection (while plus/minus automatically change temp by half deg). You were watching navigation while your wife decided that's too cold inside? bad luck.
Another example?
When you turn your parking assist on, sometimes (quite randomly) you got a settings menu that covers the top of the screen, just where your fronts sensors and camera are. So you can't see how close you are to a concrete wall, but you can launch the menu to change the brightness of the screen. Seriously?
The same thing with the air purifying, when you start the option you see the HUGE logotype in the middle, you touch it and nothing happened... because the button is in the top left corner. just close to the continental driver, and the most hidden place for the UK driver, because who would check the spec of the car, right?.
Another one? If you turn the climate off, in the top right corner you see the vent with the slider, which suggest that you could just touch it and turn the climate on, right? No, you have to find the climate button behind your cups, press, turn it on, press again to turn the menu off, why... oh why... (also, I am available if you are looking for user experience quality tester)
* laura
even if the negatives' list looks extensive, this is nitpicking (with a small exception for laura, she is really useless). I still consider this car as the best in the segment in June 2021 (still have to check Ioniq 5 and EV6).
I truly miss P2 acceleration, but then I remember the single cupholder and I am happy with my choice.
See you on the road!