SKODA Enyaq Coupe (2022 - ) Electric review

The Enyaq vRS Coupe might be pretty pricey for a car with a Skoda badge but it will at least be one of the most affordable performance models you can run. If you’re charging at home on the cheaper overnight rate, you should be able to fill up the battery for little more than £15 or thereabouts, and that should be good enough for 310 miles. That puts the Enyaq vRS Coupe on a par with rivals such as the Volkswagen ID.4 GTX, the Ford Mustang Mach-E and Volvo XC40 Recharge, but behind what’s possible with a Tesla Model Y. The Enyaq vRS Coupe will charge its 77kWh (net) battery a little quicker than before — previously the maximum charging speed for this Volkswagen Group battery was 125kW, and that has now been raised to 135kW meaning you can go from five per cent charge to 80 per cent in just 36 minutes on a suitable public charging point, though likely at a cost. While the Enyaq vRS Coupe is too expensive to benefit from government grants, you can at least enjoy lower Benefit In Kind tax rates if you’re a company car user, and zero-rate VED/road tax too.

We doubt that many Enyaq vRS Coupe owners will have much cause to grumble about their car’s reliability. Not only has Skoda been one of the strongest-performing brands in reliability terms over the past two decades (often out-performing its cousins at Volkswagen and Audi in reliability surveys), but the Enyaq Coupe uses the same set of electric motors and batteries as the VW ID.3 and ID.4, the Audi Q4 E-Tron and the Cupra Born, so all the main components are tried and tested. The infotainment system — a cause of small, annoying glitches on those early ID models — has also been updated, and can now receive over-the-air updates, which should help in the long run when it comes to sorting out issues. Owners of older Enyaq models will be invited to bring their cars to a Skoda dealer later this year to upgrade to the new software, and they will then also be able to get over-the-air updates. As with all Skodas, the Enyaq comes with a three-year, 60,000-mile warranty, which seems a little short compared to what you get from the likes of Kia or Hyundai. You can optionally extend that to five years and 100,000 miles though, and the car’s battery does come with its own eight-year, 100,000-mile warranty.

Skoda has updated the car’s suite of electronic driver aids, and these now include the ability to draw on data from other cars in the vicinity, to get early warnings of on-road hazards. There’s also an upgraded emergency steering system, which can help you swerve away from danger, as well as an improved ability for the lane-keeping system to recognise when you’re driving in narrow lanes in roadworks and act accordingly. Additionally, the car can now change lanes for you on the motorway, and there’s an expanded automated parking system that can memorise regular parking manoeuvres (such as, say, backing into your usual space at work or outside a school) and carry them out automatically when the navigation system spots that you’re in that area. This vRS model gets nine airbags, including a central airbag between the front seat occupants, to prevent them knocking into one another in the event of a side impact. The automated emergency braking system can watch for cyclists and pedestrians, and there’s a door-opening alarm if the blind-spot monitor senses that you’re about to open a door into the face of an oncoming cyclist.

The interior of the Enyaq has been one of the car’s strongest points, and the Coupe and vRS Coupe models don’t mess with the winning recipe. Indeed, you could make a compelling argument the Skoda’s interior is nicer than that of its VW or Audi cousins. Certainly, the cabin of the vRS model looks exceptionally classy, with high-backed bucket seats and lots of soft synthetic suede running across the dashboard. The contrast stitching on the dashboard materials and steering wheel also looks nice, and comfort in the front seats is exceptionally good. The amount of space available is very good, in spite of the chopped-off roofline. Indeed, Skoda claims rear-seat headroom is unchanged, although it unquestionably feels a little more cramped in the back thanks to the lower roofline. The boot is also slightly smaller at 570 litres up to the luggage cover, compared to 585 litres for the SUV Enyaq, and obviously you lose some loading space if you’re folding down the back seats and packing the car to the roof. Given that you may be buying a car such as this with an environmental conscience, it’s good to know that the Enyaq vRS Coupe comes with a lot of recycled material in the cabin, including seat fabric made from a combination of wool and recycled PET plastic bottles, and a total of 13kg of recycled plastic components in the car as a whole. Even the glass for the windows is partly made from recycled material.

The vRS gets the biggest-available 13-inch screen. As with all such systems, we have concerns over distraction when driving, but the menu layout has certainly been improved a little compared to last year’s cars, and we noticed much less lag-time and glitching than on earlier Enyaqs, too. Thanks to the over-the-air software updates, Skoda says that it can now update and improve the system in direct response to customer feedback. You can connect your phone, using Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, either wirelessly or with a cable, but note that the Enyaq uses only USB-C sockets, so you might need an adaptor. The navigation system is now a little more intelligent, and helps you to factor in charging stops on longer journeys, even giving you the option to highlight chargers supplied by specific companies — IONITY or GridServe for example — if you’re a member of their charging plans. There’s also an improved head-up display, which projects navigation directions, speed and more onto the windscreen. The big, bright-blue direction arrows when you’re approaching a difficult junction are exceptionally helpful. Other nice touches include adjustable ambient lighting, an excellent high-end Canton stereo system with 12 speakers and a sub-woofer, and thermal management for the big glass roof, which means you can do without a retracting sunblind.

Compared to the standard 204-horsepower Enyaq Coupe the vRS gets an extra electric motor driving the front wheels, bringing maximum output up to 299 horsepower. That means this big, heavy SUV can sprint to 62mph in a fairly brisk 6.5 seconds (more than two seconds faster than a standard Enyaq) and has a higher top speed. The Enyaq vRS is exceptionally smooth and easy to drive, with light steering that easily directs the nose into corners, and a reasonably comfortable ride quality. We say ‘reasonably’ because the stiffer, lower suspension of both the Coupe and vRS Coupe versions, and optional 21-inch wheels, mean that the ride isn’t quite as soft as that of the standard Enyaq. It helps if you switch the optional adaptive suspension to Comfort mode, but there’s still a bit more roughness to the ride than standard models enjoy. The trade-off is that this vRS model feels more agile, especially in Sport mode, which wakes up the front electric motor earlier and allows you to put more power down. The only problem is that, thanks to the chunky kerb weight, the Enyaq vRS Coupe never feels quite agile nor fun enough to truly justify that vRS badge. Indeed, unless you really need the extra four-wheel-drive traction, you’d probably be better off with the standard rear-drive Enyaq Coupe, which has the same styling and cabin, but has a longer 335-mile range.