Is this love?
If you find yourself falling hard for a plug-in Skoda, you are not alone
There are cars designed to appeal to your head, there are cars designed to grab you by the heart, and there are modern Skodas – some of which start with the former but end up doing plenty of the latter to a fairly unexpected extent.
Few will browse and configure an Octavia iV in the advanced stages of face-flushing lust, but it’s easy to find yourself getting a little hot under the collar at the idea of a handsome estate car with 43 miles of electric-only range, a ludicrously low benefit-in-kind tax rate, a handy 201bhp with which to get around and the promise at least of some very miserly fuel consumption (forget the ocial numbers but reckon on 55mpg at the very least).
This, smaller, iV (the bigger Superb launched first) goes about its business with the kind of quiet and classy competence that, in time, is likely to nurture a real if unlikely love for this hunk of smartly-creased, petrol ’n’ electric metal.
In the cabin there’s space, order, a touch-based interface you can work with and the unmistakable perfume of VW Group quality – the Octavia’s is a £35k interior that feels like a £45k one. Under the hood is a 1.4-litre turbo four-cylinder, an e-motor the other side of the clutch (housed within the gearbox) and, out back, a 13kWh battery that, in return for that decent all-electric range, steals some boot space and brings with it 135kg of unwanted additional weight.
And on the road the iV just works, blending quiet and refined if steady progress on electric power alone (in cold weather, on a route poorly suited to EVs, we ‘lost’ around 20 per cent of the displayed range, covering 21 miles on 24 miles of range and 16 on 21 miles) with nicely weighted and calibrated driving controls (abrupt brakes aside). There’s plenty of grip and ride comfort, even if the car’s weight and soft set-up conspire to create a floaty sensation at times and a decent slug of roll should you get carried away.
If, like me, your usage is textbook PHEV – offstreet parking with a garage for charging (albeit on a three-pin plug) and daily short journeys – then, within those parameters, the iV excels.
You can well imagine going months between fill-ups, so little work does the engine do if you exhibit a shred of restraint (a stern challenge on motorways, where the Skoda’s weight, drag and e-power limits you to a mobile-chicane 70mph).
If your heart craves a little more speed, body control and kudos, Skoda will sell you a vRS version of the Octavia iV for £35k. Exciting! Except that the uprated plug-in powertrain becomes unresponsive and at times confused in a hot hatch setting, undermining the keen steering and chassis.
No, stick with the standard iV. And be prepared to fall for – of all things – a plug-in estate.