Skoda Enyaq Coupé vRS long-term test: report 6
The Enyaq Coupé vRS is a new type of car for Skoda: an electric coupé SUV with an emphasis on looks and performance. But does it make sense in real-world use?...
The car Skoda Enyaq Coupé iV vRS Run by Allan Muir, managing editor
Why we’re running it To see whether the most stylish and powerful Skoda yet can justify its relatively high price
Needs to Live up to its sporty brief by being great fun to drive while still proving easy to live with and having a generous real-world range
Mileage 4353 List price £54,370 Target Price £53,430 Price as tested £54,990 Test range 265 miles Official range 323 miles
17 July 2023 – Angel of the North
As with most electric cars, my Skoda Enyaq Coupé is falling some way shy of matching its official range, but its real-world figure is climbing steadily, now achieving around 265 miles from a full charge (compared with 210 miles when I took delivery back in March). That’s enough to make longer journeys reasonably stress-free – as content editor James Tute found when he borrowed my car for a few days.
Starting with a nearly full battery, James set off from London to his parents' home near Macclesfield, Cheshire – a distance of just under 200 miles. Although this trip could easily have been completed without stopping, he opted to top up on the M6, less than 10 miles from his destination, to avoid having to search for a charging location in Macclesfield. As it turns out, Macclesfield now has a BP Pulse charging station with seven devices, each with two 150kW CCS connectors (and a few CHAdeMO ones) – a big improvement on the situation when he was there last Christmas.
The next day, he and his parents went on a day trip to the Angel of the North, about 160 miles away, stopping for a quick top-up and a coffee at a Gridserve site on the A1(M) at Washington. There were also a couple of Fastned chargers in the Angel car park, so he gave the battery level an additional boost there.
All in all, James said, the generous range on offer from the Enyaq’s 77kWh battery made his time with the car “boringly easy” from a charging point of view. In contrast, when he made similar trips in the 58kWh Cupra Born he ran last year, finding somewhere to top up was on his mind a lot more, due to its shorter real-world range of around 200 miles.
James found the Enyaq brilliant for cruising on motorways and dual carriageways, but he said it felt its weight on the twisty country roads around Cheshire; it wasn't anywhere near as much fun to drive as its looks and paint colour suggest.
He was impressed with the quality and smart, uncluttered look of the interior, plus he found the driver's seat excellent for long-distance comfort. His parents, too, liked the seats and the amount of space available front and rear. They noted that the ride was firm, but there were no complaints, at least when cruising at higher speeds.
The absence of a head-up display came as a surprise, but James loved the adaptive cruise control (ACC), which, as well as matching the Enyaq’s speed to that of the car in front, can automatically change the target speed based on road signs it detects. He said it generally did a good job of reading them, although it got the limit wrong a few times.
Erroneous speed limit detection is something I, too, have experienced at times when using the ACC in my Enyaq. On a trip from London down to Folkstone recently, when coming out of a long 50mph zone on the M20, the car thought the limit had changed to 100mph and started accelerating hard; I assume it would have kept going if I hadn’t intervened.
The road sign symbol in the instrument panel continued to show 100mph for quite a few miles before reverting to the correct limit. If you prefer, the automatic speed limit adjuster can be turned off – and stays off – without affecting the ACC’s other, more welcome functions.
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