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!

Hi Wrona, great review which I also read on the Facebook group. 

 

That was a big ol' drive!

Good review and its certainly giving me a few thinking points about what I may order.

Almost all car digital assistants are rubbish. I even have Google voice on android auto playing up on my car every so often, randomly thinking someone has pressed to voice control button or said hey Google.

Surely the washer jets can be adjusted to hit the windows better?

 

 

With the Ioniq 5, if you fill the boot of the Enyaq, don't bother. The boot is a lot smaller, and you can't fit a roof rack to it either (its the same with the mustang mach E). I looked at one yesterday and the dealers response to those questions were to get one with a towing hook and buy a trailer to carry the stuff that I can easily fit in a Superb hatch with a roof box.

@wr0na, a really frank and interesting review both from the perspective of the use of an EV for long distance travel and the way it was conducted.

 

I'm presuming you were operating roughly in the 20% to 80% battery capacity range to maximise charge rate and minimise time spent at the stop so I'm estimating with your 1:10h at nominal 160kph motorway driving speeds you were maybe getting between 150 to 180km between charges?

Roughly how many times and how long did you have to wait for an available charge station?

 

We are in the very early stages of EV adoption here in Australia and the choice of EV are limited, numbers on the road are low but growing, and the recharging infrastructure very patchy in some areas so your experience gives some idea of what's to come and potential issues.

I think it is going to be about 5 years before the sort of affordable vehicle I want is available here and an infrastructure in place to support it. Or I get a PHEV?

 

 

 

@wr0na With your experience of long distances now, do you think driving slower and getting more miles per charge is a better strategy than driving fast and spending more time at chargers? Why do you think so? What was your charging regime? Did you use any route planning software such as A Better Route Planner?

Interested in a real life experience and will no doubt have more questions! 

22 hours ago, roo said:

Good review and its certainly giving me a few thinking points about what I may order.

Almost all car digital assistants are rubbish. I even have Google voice on android auto playing up on my car every so often, randomly thinking someone has pressed to voice control button or said hey Google.

Surely the washer jets can be adjusted to hit the windows better?

 

 

With the Ioniq 5, if you fill the boot of the Enyaq, don't bother. The boot is a lot smaller, and you can't fit a roof rack to it either (its the same with the mustang mach E). I looked at one yesterday and the dealers response to those questions were to get one with a towing hook and buy a trailer to carry the stuff that I can easily fit in a Superb hatch with a roof box.

 

I was using google assistant all the time, to change navigation or music. we also have Alexa at home so entire family is used to voice controlled devices, that's why seeing laura so useless is so disappointing. 

I know, we had MME test drive. it was nice to drive (but Polestar 2 is still the best in that field), but absolutely not optimal. I love the size of enyak trunk, if wish we could get sliding rear bench or at least adjustable seat angle.

 

9 hours ago, Gerrycan said:

@wr0na, a really frank and interesting review both from the perspective of the use of an EV for long distance travel and the way it was conducted.

 

I'm presuming you were operating roughly in the 20% to 80% battery capacity range to maximise charge rate and minimise time spent at the stop so I'm estimating with your 1:10h at nominal 160kph motorway driving speeds you were maybe getting between 150 to 180km between charges?

Roughly how many times and how long did you have to wait for an available charge station?

 

We are in the very early stages of EV adoption here in Australia and the choice of EV are limited, numbers on the road are low but growing, and the recharging infrastructure very patchy in some areas so your experience gives some idea of what's to come and potential issues.

I think it is going to be about 5 years before the sort of affordable vehicle I want is available here and an infrastructure in place to support it. Or I get a PHEV?

 

 

 

This is a very good question.

So yes.. EVs are literally made for going B-roads. after a week ABRP learned my driving style so well that it could predict state of battery on the final destination up to a single percentage. Guess what, if (in case of the accident and major traffic jam) I decided to leave the motorway and go B-roads instead I was able to save 20-30% of my battery!!

But there is a downside, in countries like Poland, fast chargers are located mostly next to motorways, so in fact you are forced to drive in non-optimal way.

And because I was unlucky to drive across Germany at evening/night I decided to go with motorways to reduce the chance of meeting wildlife on country roads, but if you have to do 200 miles, and you know that there is a charger at the end of the road, I would take b-road every single time. Skoda is just made for this kind of trips, 70mph, panoramic roof open, no engine noise, DCC in comfort mode. I love it.

 

charging stations, again, it depends on the country.

I had to wait for a spot...ONCE. and I decided to go for the next charger.

In countries where EVs are popular (like NL or DE) you will find 4-6 chargers on every station, so while you are not alone, you will not have to wait.

In ev-developing-countries (like PL) even if you have a single fast (but still slow - 50kW) charger, you are the only one there for 95% cases.

In current stage the infrastructure is the key. you simply HAVE to get a wallbox to make bEV efficient.

For me PHEV would be the optimal choice. I am doing a lot of short trips. my daily schedule is like:  dropping kid to school at 8.45 am, going 15+15 miles to gym at lunch time, taking kid to gym 15+15miles in the evening. so any type of phev with 30-40 miles of range would cover my needs. BUT with UK available grants and salary sacrifice programmes going BEV was even cheaper.

so I leased my Skoda. I expect that in 3 years we will be in completely different situation. I plan to buy a larger BEV (something like 7 seater) for trips, and some small city car (Honda E, fiat 500).

4 hours ago, Luckypants said:

@wr0na With your experience of long distances now, do you think driving slower and getting more miles per charge is a better strategy than driving fast and spending more time at chargers? Why do you think so? What was your charging regime? Did you use any route planning software such as A Better Route Planner?

Interested in a real life experience and will no doubt have more questions! 

Like I said above, driving slower on the B-roads is the best tactics, BUT because I HAD to drive for 17-21 hours to be there on my dentist appointment I couldn't risk getting slowed down by lack of fast charger on some off-the-field location. Thats why going motorway and drinking coffee every hour was my only choice (two stars experience, do not recommend).

then, yes, outside Germany and Netherlands you have to use apps like ABRP to schedule your trip. 

I was working in combo mode. So I planned my trip on ABRP, then I had ABRP in the background on my phone with EVNotify on. While I used an address from ABRP with Waze.
The reasons are simple:
* ABRP on android auto can be temperamental, I had some cases when IF application on the phone decided that there is a better route, application on the infotainment just froze and no longer show any updates on guidance (ABRP for AA is still in BETA phase)
* two times ABRP decided to guide me to charging station via technical access only roads 😃 lucky for me, station service agreed to buzz me in. Thank you guys!
As soon as you have a charging station on every petrol services or maps/waze got this functionality I would be extremely happy, till then I will pay for ABRP before every holidays

 

As a small extra to your original post (if its there, I could not see it),   do you think the Enyaq works as a main family car.

I'm asking as an Enyaq/id4 or similar would replace my superb and be the large family car for long trips/holidays.

@wr0na Thanks for the reply.

2 hours ago, roo said:

As a small extra to your original post (if its there, I could not see it),   do you think the Enyaq works as a main family car.

I'm asking as an Enyaq/id4 or similar would replace my superb and be the large family car for long trips/holidays.

Absolutely. I think you can easily compare interior to Kodiaq. I am 187cm tall and I can sit behind myself even with the plastic table. You also have luggage space for four adults. please check following photos.

 

2 hours ago, Luckypants said:

@wr0na Thanks for the reply.

yw!

Thank you for the review, and the cargo space looks brilliant.
 

I’m switching from a Superb (hatch) to an Enyaq 80, and based on your experiences it sounds like it will work just fine as the main car for our family of four. 

22 minutes ago, Malakim said:

Thank you for the review, and the cargo space looks brilliant.
 

I’m switching from a Superb (hatch) to an Enyaq 80, and based on your experiences it sounds like it will work just fine as the main car for our family of four. 

without a doubt. also, this is with the variable floor in top position as I wanted to keep some items under the floor. if you remove the styrofoam inserts you can lower the floor and pack even more.

Oh BTW... if you want to see how great and accurate Skoda satnav is, just take a look.

Culinaris exists in Cambridge since 2015.

Skoda Vs Waze.

2 hours ago, wr0na said:

Oh BTW... if you want to see how great and accurate Skoda satnav is, just take a look.

Culinaris exists in Cambridge since 2015.

Skoda Vs Waze.

Seems like this has been a constant problem with the integrated navigation.
 

The navigation in my Superb is terrible for navigating to local businesses by name, but if you enter the street address it’s fine. 

On 17/08/2021 at 09:53, wr0na said:

Hi Folks, 
<snip>
See you on the road!

Thanks for the really great review. I'm still at the trying to spec phase, so this was really helpful.

 

My Superb has a really clever thing in the boot - some velcro plastic things you can stick to the floor to hold in place things like boxes etc and stop them sliding around. I wish I knew what they were called! I can't seem to work out if those are standard, or if I need to get some 'pack' to put them in the Enyaq. The sales person wasn't too sure either as the demo vehicles had the luggage pack (and the two plastic things). Skoda's descriptions don't mention them.

 

So - did it come with those two things? That's my fairly short question.

 

Thanks in advance.

@wr0na

Did you add up the total cost of 4,500 miles of charging?

 

It would be good to compare the cost with getting 10 miles a litre using a diesel so around 45 mpg.

1 hour ago, Yaffle said:

Thanks for the really great review. I'm still at the trying to spec phase, so this was really helpful.

 

My Superb has a really clever thing in the boot - some velcro plastic things you can stick to the floor to hold in place things like boxes etc and stop them sliding around. I wish I knew what they were called! I can't seem to work out if those are standard, or if I need to get some 'pack' to put them in the Enyaq. The sales person wasn't too sure either as the demo vehicles had the luggage pack (and the two plastic things). Skoda's descriptions don't mention them.

 

So - did it come with those two things? That's my fairly short question.

 

Thanks in advance.

AFAIK this two plastic with velcro thingie are the part of transport pack. If you don't have transport pack you got solid plastic side pocket dividers (and thats how I am using my velcro parts right now). I've also got two velcro bag holders from Lidl. more than enough

1 hour ago, e-Roottoot said:

@wr0na

Did you add up the total cost of 4,500 miles of charging?

 

It would be good to compare the cost with getting 10 miles a litre using a diesel so around 45 mpg.

No, but I plan to do that this weekend.

On 21/08/2021 at 08:35, Yaffle said:

some velcro plastic things you can stick to the floor to hold in place things like boxes etc and stop them sliding around. I wish I knew what they were called! I

I got something like this :
 

you can also find some on amazon:
https://smile.amazon.co.uk/Stayhold-SH-SHB008-STAYHOLD®-Super-Orange/dp/B017BOSMD4/ref=psdc_2481730031_t2_B08CZVS7VC
but I really like my lidl one visible in the background. they have velcro for light hold and some.. 'claws' to hold into the surface if they are weighted with some grocery bags.

 

1 minute ago, wr0na said:

I got something like this :
 

<snip>

 

You, sir are scholar and a gentleman.

 

Thank you.

On 21/08/2021 at 08:35, Yaffle said:

 

 

So - did it come with those two things? That's my fairly short question.

 

Thanks in advance.

I don’t have the transport pack and the car came with the plastic Velcro thing.

Just now, classic said:

I don’t have the transport pack and the car came with the plastic Velcro thing.

Thanks - that's really helpful to know.

Great story.

 

I think I’ll hang on till things get better.

 

Do manufacturers ever consider road testing cars with real people?

 

ps - I’ve got those little plastic Velcro brackets for locating boxes on the boot floor.  But they’re no use to me as I use a full size plastic boot tray instead .

Edited 22 August, 20214 yr by BoxerBoy

Very much so.

Disguised ones in the Arctic & in the Tropics and on Alpine trips staying in nice hotels, on private test and race tracks.

 

Somehow they fail to actually put a family in them with all their gear and see if it all works in a practical way on trips or suits UK weather like in winter which can be different from Continental European countries.  

They also fail to do the right hand drive testing and the journalist test at Launches with Left Hand Drive cars and then can make them What Car /Autocar car of the year before any customer even gets near a right hand drive one.

On 22/08/2021 at 12:43, classic said:

I don’t have the transport pack and the car came with the plastic Velcro thing.

I got the velcro things and the plasticside dividers