Skoda promises big things with electric performance sub-brand
Skoda has been consistently brilliant at providing performance-flavoured cars that don’t compromise on practicality or lead to difficult conversations with financial advisers for several years now.
While the little Fabia vRS hot hatch is no longer a proposition, the Volkswagen Group’s Czech offshoot has perfected the idea of the “hot wagon” with several generations of frankly fantastic vRS Octavia.
Now, with a refocus on electric mobility (just like everyone else in the industry), Skoda is also rethinking its strategy around its sporty models. Thankfully though, that doesn’t mean the end of those evocative letters on the boot lids of future Skodas. They’ll just be prefixed by the letter “e”.
British outlet Auto Express has broken the news this week that Skoda intends to make a performance variant of its upcoming all-electric model. To be built using the Volkswagen Group’s MEB scalable electric platform, the go-faster model will be known as the eRS and should be on sale by 2020 (like every single other eagerly promised new EV, it would seem).
While a “performance” EV might seem like an oxymoron, Skoda believes the eRS will still boast a 480km range. That’s assuming you don’t drive it like an RS of old, of course.
Alain Favey, Skoda’s board member for sales and marketing has poured a little lukewarm water on the idea, though, saying that “it’s not about performance as such. It’s about experience, and that’s something we can do very well in our future electric cars”. Oh no; he said “experience”. That doesn’t bode well and smacks of marketing department input.
Regardless of whether the idea of an electric Skoda interests you; there is even better news on the horizon. Not only is the next-gen Fabia rumoured to once again be augmented with a vRS badge, but the manufacturer’s most-popular model – the Kodiaq – is also possibly set to receive the vRS treatment. Who needs an EV that badly anyway?