Autocar Awards 2022: Skoda Enyaq iV takes best family car
Our judges were impressed with Skoda's first all-electric offering, praising its premium interior and refined drive
As makers of EVs come up with outrageous power outputs, ever- longer ranges and in some cases eye-watering prices, you might expect Skoda – very much the maker of sensible family cars – to do things differently.
And so it has, not by skewing any aspect towards the extremes but by doing almost the opposite: opting for a sensible, middle-ground compromise.
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As with so many things in life, that’s where lots of us operate. We get up, we get through the days, we live, laugh, love, like it says on that sign in somebody else’s kitchen, and we call it a day. And we need a sensible set of family wheels to accompany us.
Step forward, then, the Skoda Enyaq iV, designed by people who understand the way the world works.
It is, we concluded when we put it through the Autocar road test mill last summer, a sweet spot in the family EV market. It sits on a similar platform to other EVs from within the Volkswagen Group but operates without quite so many of their quirks and foibles and faults.
Its interior is a match for anything from Audi at the same level, and it’s roomy, cleverly thought-out and ergonomically sensible (a slightly overburdened touchscreen aside, but that’s inevitable everywhere now).
To drive, meanwhile, it is has a rounded and mature chassis set-up. Excitement? Not so much, but remember what kind of car it is. It’s a family wagon with a tall-ish driving position and resultantly gives the kind of drive that you wouldn’t just expect but hope for.
It has a calm ride, nicely weighted and geared steering with a sense of stability and a pleasing, linear response to its controls.
It’s comfortable without being floppy; responsive enough without being hyperactive. With a smooth and very quiet driveline and the brisk acceleration that brings, plus a respectable range, Skoda treads a line deftly, again.
If there are criticisms, they’re relatively few. There are some slightly annoying active safety features and resultant drivability quirks, plus what looks like a somewhat mean standard kit list – although you suspect that’s partly driven by the price that Skoda and thus its customers have to payfor the mechanical specification. The battery cost, basically.
The cost of the technology behind the Enyaq is, as with so many other electric cars, likely to make EVs of all shapes and sizes seem pricey compared with internal-combustion options for years to come yet.
But, working around that limitation, this hasn’t stopped Skoda hitting on a family car that seems to offer more for less – and that’s quite the tonic