Enyaq VRS coupe falls short

SKODA’S SPORTY BADGE IS OUT OF PLACE ON ELECTRIC SUV

Skoda’s performance badge is VRS and it’s been pinned to some rather good cars over the years. The Octavia VRS estate was and is one of my favourite cars both in diesel and petrol forms.

That car was perfect for the car enthusiast who had a storkon-the-approach radar and needed to flog the sports car and get something practical.

My niece was in that situation years ago and the Octavia VRS that I persuaded her to buy has done her loyal service.

Skoda still offers VRS models. The Fabia VRS got the chop a while back but you can still get a hot Octavia and also a warmedup Kodiaq SUV. But now Skoda has plonked its sexiest badge on the back of the electric Enyaq iv; first to the regular square SUV and now to the coupe version.

It’s the coupe we’re testing this week. It’ll need to be a damned good car because Skoda wants £54,370 for the thing and that’s before options have been added.

Our test car is in Phoenix Orange Metallic which costs £390. That’s not so bad but £680 for a charging cable is heavy and the optional 21in alloy wheels (kerching, £620) spoil the ride.

The Enyaq iv VRS uses the same battery as the regular

models which means 82kwh with a useable 77kwh. Skoda says that’ll get you 323 miles but you can ignore that. Our test car was delivered with 70% of charge showing but after about 95 miles of driving it was down to 11%

and started suggesting that I stop to charge it. Good idea. Just as an aside, it cost me £32.64 to add

139 miles of range and I was sat in a Mcdonald’s car park for almost an hour. This is not cheap motoring. Or convenient. Sadly

the Enyaq VRS is not interesting enough or suitably fun to drive to justify its existence.

On paper it should be the opposite because its twin motor powertrain produces a total of 295bhp and it’ll do 0-62mph in 6.4 sec. It doesn’t feel that fast.

Also, maximum grunt is only available for up to 10 seconds at a time, and only if the battery is at a certain temperature and charged beyond 88%.

Since Skoda itself (and most other EV manufacturers) recommends not charging the car’s battery to more than 80% for the sake of longevity, you’re paying a lot of money for performance you’ll not even be able to use most of the time.

The VRS weighs almost 2.2 tons and feels it too. On corners you feel the mass and it feels leaden and unresponsive. You can select Sport mode which sets adaptive dampers into a stiffer setting, but the ride quality suffers so there’s no point in doing that.

Besides, you need to conserve the battery juice so Sport or sporty driving should be avoided.

It’s not all bad. The Enyaq iv VRS coupe is remarkably quiet and refined. The interior is very impressive, too, more so than the one fitted to Volkswagen’s ID.5 – a bit embarrassing for VW as Skoda is meant to be the value brand.

A panoramic sunroof is standard in the VRS and creates a nice and airy interior. I’ll leave judgment on the coupe’s styling to your eyes but it needs to be pointed out that to get this sloping rear deck you have to sacrifice 15 litres of luggage space. It still holds a generous 570 litres but space isn’t all about capacity – it’s also about shape and you might find larger items tricky to fit into the coupe.

A love-or-hate-it feature is the illuminated front grille. I quite like it but I dread to think how much it would cost to replace it if it was damaged.

Trying to build a 2.2-ton electric SUV that is fun to drive is a difficult task. Skoda hasn’t managed it with this car and no other manufacturer has cracked it yet either.

The standard Enyaq iv, whether in SUV body style or coupe, is a better car that is less expensive than this attempt at sportiness. I’d give the VRS a miss.

To add 139 miles it cost £32.64 and I was sat at a Mcdonald’s nearly an hour