PETROLHEAD LIVES WITH EV FOR A WEEK?! Skoda Enyaq VRS

This week I had the opportunity to drive my first EV loan and I have to admit, I was a bit skeptical at first. However, I can’t deny that I genuinely enjoyed the experience of driving the Enyak VRS!

Would I own one right now? Maybe! I believe it all comes down to personal circumstance and what works best for each individual.

I’d love to hear your thoughts! What do you think of the Skoda Enyak VRS? 🚗⚡

#skoda #skodavrs #vrs #volkswagengroup #enyak #skodaoctavia #skodafabia #skodasuperb #vwgroup #cargirl #carcommunity #carsofinstagram #volkswagen

[CymruDad]

Thank you for a good honest review from a self-confessed petrol-head. We got our Enyaq 80 in January - and I have to say I love it. We had a Nissan Leaf Mk2 on lease for 3 years before that. The Enyaq is such a step up from the Leaf. Lots of room for the kids and dog and luggage, really well thought out design, layout etc. Nice to drive. A great car!

[niptodstan]

I collected one of these 3 weeks ago. The Sportline 85x. I love it. The predictive assist is great. It’s almost self driving. The B mode takes some getting used to, but in traffic it’s good. Go and fill your ice car up with petrol and it’s £70. Charge this at home on a drive tariff…£7. Bit of a difference. I love how the seat moves back when you get out. How you don’t start it. You get in. Seatbelt on and drive away. The car knows you’re in it. The Laura assistant works (I’m a brummie too). It wouldn’t bother me if I never had an ice car again.

[heinzruffieux]

Well done review!
Being an EV Owner for more than 10 years and more than 200k miles undee my belt across Europe including trips from Switzerland to the northcape I am of the opinion that public charging is a matter of getting used to and your personal willingness for change. Same as we had to get used to charge our smartphones once a day vs. weekly with older mobile phones.
Yes, charging interruptions may happen, but when you know it, you check the progress from time to time on your app.
I agree however, that charging at home is most convenient and cheapest.

[AkceleraceElectric]

Thank you for this great video. A lot of hard work behind it. Regards from Prague...

[michaelwhite]

You certainly picked one of the best EV's to do this with. I'm a brit living in Norway - the Enyaq is incredibly popular here - I own an 80x myself :-). The Enyaq is another circumstance where Skoda did a better job than VW - the VW equivalent being the ID4 (great car spoiled by a cheap feeling interior and infuriating primary and secondary controls - touch sensitive and haptic instead of physical buttons). Here in Norway, the infrastructure is a fair few years ahead of the UK, so the charging stress isn't really an issue anymore as fast chargers are readily available across most of the country (there are more than 20 of them within 5 minutes drive of my house, but I also have a charger fitted at home). A number of the apps are a little infuriating still - although things are made a little simpler by using a key fob chip. The government here has also started requiring chargers to have a simple card payment option (although I'm not sure what the deadline on that is). The relative price of EV's is still a big problem in the UK, which it hasn't been here (as VAT on EV's was completely dropped by the government until recently - and ICE cars have always been incredibly expensive here in most cases it actually works out cheaper to buy an EV here than the equivalent ICE or it's evened up a little recently due to taxing). Add that to the fact that petrol & diesel are roughly the same price as the UK (maybe very slightly higher) and electricity is generally under half of the price of the you maybe understand why adoption of EV's here has been an absolute landslide. There's an enormous amount of negative media floating around about EV's, and in some cases I can understand where they are coming from (particularly on the infrastructure side of things), but these people need to come to a place where everything is a bit closer to how it needs to be to make EV's viable (it's still not perfect here, there's just very little argument left for not owning an EV). The only slight concern left on this side of the North Sea is the best way to handle an EV battery please don't believe all the rubbish about EV's bursting into flames every 5 minutes. Do they burn? - yes, just about anything will burn - does it happen often? Most definitely not. Just to give a bit of context on the rate of occurrence of EV fires - in this country, 59 fires occurred in a 30 month period (Jan 2019 - Jun 2021) and at the start of that period there were already over half a million EV's on the road in Norway. To be honest, I would be more concerned about modern hybrid vehicles - a lot of them have reasonable size batteries and are more likely to fail due to the increased complexity and extra sources of heat and ignition. With the current research and race to develop better, safer batteries, this will hopefully be a thing of the past very soon.
And just a final comment - the little tray on the floor in the middle of the back seats lifts out ;-). Took mine out on the first day and haven't put it back since.

[harrycummings]

As a petrol head, still with a V8 SLK55 in the garage, and a GR Yaris on the drive, I'm into the second week of owning an EV as a daily and I'm loving it, the car happens to be a BMW i4 eDrive40. My previous car was a recent BMW 320d and to be honest the cars feel very similar, just with a different "engine", the biggest difference is even though I have adaptive dampers I can feel the weight moving around on a nasty (but fun) bump exiting my favourite roundabout close to home. When I bought the 320d, I did so because at the moment in the UK it's pointless having a performance car as a daily, but the i4 has added a sense of comfort, quietness and serenity that I've never had in a car and I've owned some top end Mercedes. With home charging the car gives me decent economy and doesn't give me any anxiety about range in daily life either, I look at a range of 250-300 miles as similar to the Yaris on a full tank and believe me the Yaris can use up range rather quickly!!! I think my first major test will be when I visit my son in Liverpool, which is around 150 miles over the M62 so I'll need to charge somewhere and the options are pretty poor, so either the outward or return journey will be around 30minutes or more longer than the 2 hours 30 minutes it is when the traffic behaves itself. Overall though I'd recommend an EV providing you can charge at home 95+ percent of the time, no home charger stick to petrol or diesel at least in the UK for now.

[markgaudie]

As a well seasoned EV owner of over 7 years now I do appreciate your honesty on this review. Liked and shared. 👍

Best of luck on your EV journey. We love ours.

[ISuperTed]

Great review. Tried an Enyaq 2 years ago (company car driver who has to have an EV) and thought it was a great family car. Didn’t get one due to the cost and went for a smaller EV (Peugeot e208) and can honestly say I’ve never regretted it. Crucially I home charge and as you say, it makes a massive difference. In fact I wouldn’t have one without it.

I’ve only needed to public charge a handful of times in 18 months and have had one poor experience with chargers not working, but other than that it’s a lovely thing to drive - fast, smooth and handles well.

I need to choose a new company car in 6 months and looking at the Enyaq again as it’s (mysteriously) cheaper monthly now than 2 years ago and may replace our diesel estate with it. However still unsure about this as it would be used for a lot more family trips so more public charging and TBH there is still a bit of nervousness around that.

[lumajs]

Dear Amelia, greetings from Pilsen, the true original cradle of Emil Škoda's brand. It was a wonderful video to watch. First, the first Czech pure EV had to be made petrol-like because like you, 98% of Czech drivers consider EVs an inferior dead end, so a Škoda pure EV had to modestly hide its being electric. Being conservative is a must. One needs a grill, physical buttons, and lots of other things resembling real cars because otherwise the EV could be rejected not just by Czech buyers - which it is anyway - but also by Czech engineers working for the company. So you fit perfectly among the Czech (not only male) petrol heads - it looks like the England fans who arrive to Prague and really enjoy the beer at the stadium and the cheap price, a true proximity of seemingly distant cultures and temperaments. Enyaq may be seen as a bizarre export product for a niche market, 99% of the Enyaqs are exported. On the other hand, it is not quite a negligible item because while the bestselling Octavia sells 200, 000 a year, the Enyaq has 100, 000 but it is about twice as expensive so by the revenues for Škoda, Octavia and Enyaq are actually tied at the top! Each may be responsible for some 1/5 of the Škoda revenues and you know, Škoda Auto is 5% of the Czech GDP and 10% of the Czech exports.

I watched the development of the Enyaq since the concept (Vision E or what was the name) which looked amazing and surprisingly, the real car ended up to be almost equally good. I was really excited to see Enyaqs around, watched the sales numbers etc.

A guy in the next block has this color, mamba green (like a venomous snake which has this color), but it is the Enyaq Coupé which I find much prettier than this estate version of yours. It is a car that attracts my eyes more than the 100 surrounding cars combined. The color and the shape are irresistible. Maybe there are disadvantages of being this visually attractive but there are also advantages.

The interior looked really cool for a mass market affordable car. Thankfully, the interiors of petrol Škodas were just updated as well. The new Superb and Kodiaq have the Smart Dials, for example (mechanical turning knobs with displays and functions that may be redefined by pressing them), which is just cool and it should be in every VW Group car (I write it as a VW shareholder), too bad it is not. In many ways, the newer Superb and Kodiaq have better interiors than even the Enyaq. Note that the new 2024 Enyaq no longer has the iV in the name (and on the rear - so a room for your stickers re-engineering) and the software is more responsive, among other things. The battery has the same hardware but the optimization makes the range some 5% better.

The charging must be annoying for longer journeys, when you need to do it during driving. The winter weather may make things hard, as many have witnessed, and so on. The idea of an electric majority - especially in the world including the poor world - will remain a silly fantasy at least for decades because the EVs are more expensive, losing value quickly, slower to charge etc. but it is indeed wrong to dogmatically fight against something that also has advantages and may be picked by someone. Search YouTube for Enyaq Choir to see how the Swedish kids convert arrogant Polestar and Tesla owners in the Swedish suburbia to the Enyaq.

[michaelloach]

Thanks Amelia, great vid. My Wife has just got the 85X Enyaq & I'm just getting used to it. Putting it in B3 was quite a surprise, it's almost like one foot driving & I just can't get used to it. I was surprised with the instant acceleration when overtaking. There's plenty of room (especially with the back seats down) & it suits my Wife perfectly. We are getting a charger at home & there really isn't the 'range anxiety' that a lot of people get with EV's. Personally, I will stick with my S5 convertible....All the best...

[Lewis_Standing]

You'll learn that a cold battery charges more slowly, as does a more full battery.

Home charging or work car park charging is a must at present.

I made it work for a year, because back in the day there was free charging at different places and once a week charging it a mile or two away was fine to keep fit.

Looks like you're approaching it with an open mind, good on you. 👍

[fjeywls]

I really enjoyed your review of this ev. I myself have been an ev driver for nearly 5 years now, and am onto my 2nd car. Just to give you a quick tip if you do ever go full time ev owner. Get an energy supplier who offers a night time electricity tariff(sometimes known as economy 7). Some offer as little as 5p per KWH. which would mean at 3 miles per KWH, would cost just 5p

[nickbrooker]

great video! love the Enyaq and nearly chose one as a company car - however went for the tesla model y - suits me way better with more space - but the main reason to go for a tesla is the supercharging network and the tesla software which incorporates your charging as part of the nav route - even knows which chargers are busy and will re-direct you to less busy chargers - no apps required, no cards, does it all for you, plug in and walk away! well worth trying tesla next - you'll be impressed!

[AdamLeask]

Bold colour, but I dig it! And yes, those huge 20 inch wheels will have specifically designed hubcaps to reduce aerodynamic drag.

[kelalamusic]

A very honest review. As a former metrolhead, I will never go back. When a young man, I was a huge car enthusiast. I created my own hot rods, rebuilt engines etc. but now that I’m older, I appreciate quiet and that I don’t create chocking gasses out the back of the car. Remember during COVID when cities began to notice clean more breathable air? That’s where we drastically need to be. EVs will take us there. I drive mine around town, and charge it at home. I’ve saved a lot of money over the tree years of ownership. No, or hardly no maintenance. Since I purchased it, it’s never seen the dealership again. You like performance cars? Well, there are some EVs out there that will give you stick your back to the seat experience. As a matter of fact, and I can’t remember the name, but there is an EV out there that holds the record for fast acceleration and speed. I will trade mine in when charging locations increase, and battery technology improves. It’s getting there. Thanks for the review.

[BrianAnderson-geoo]

I have ordered this very car. Hope its as good as you say. I have a home charger fitted and ready.
Thank you for explaining what I didn't know. Great review.

[jeremyfk]

Good review and great to see a reviewer being honest. Most petrol heads I've watched automatically blame the EV for mistakes they make and give a false impression that EVs are bad. Keep it up and glad you enjoyed your first EV experience. Yes the public charging things can be a bit of a faff but with a little experience you get used to it very quickly. Most people too find that after a few weeks of EV driving, they become a more relaxed driver.😊

[scottwills]

Nice review, the charging is much easier when you get used to it, Electroverse makes it easier as you can charge with 1 app / RFID on many chargers. The Enyaq has been updated for 2024 and now has much more power and the rear motor is more efficient, the software / hardware has been update and now is much better. It is also cheaper to buy and has higher standard specification. Charging at home you can get 7.5p per Kwh so it would cost you 2p per mile.

[John]

When you read comments on any electric car review you see the two camps firmly established. Some are EVs are the only way and all ICE cars are evil and other comments where EVs are terrible.

You have to compare based on cost, performance, build quality etc and judge them as cars. I like quick cars that are well made and provide acceptable value. I do long journeys of over 200 miles every week. At the moment I won’t buy electric because they aren’t good enough in key areas. I’m not tribal about it, when they win the group test and are priced competitively I will buy one.

[toad]

Nice review. Easy going. Carry on. I have a friend with an Enyaq, nice car. We have Kona, bit smaller but nice. 5 years now and Zoe 3 years before that.