Skoda’s most powerful car is all-electric

01st February 2022

Bob Murray

Skoda’s go-faster brand vRS has entered the electric era with its first battery-powered model. No surprise there, we knew this sporting flagship for the Enyaq iV range was coming. What we didn’t know is that it would be wrapped up in a sleeker and less SUV-like body. Skoda calls it a coupe but it’s very much a four-door with fastback styling.

The Enyaq Coupe iV vRS is quite a badge full for what in reality will be Skoda’s most powerful model with 295PS (220kW), and also the company’s most expensive car – one suggestion is £55,000 – when it goes on sale in the UK later this year.

It is then quite a statement model for the brand, and definitely not a car you could miss in its launch colour of Hyper Green which is available only for the vRS (the sloping-roof fastback body is available for other Enyaq iV versions as well).

The black-edged and LED-illuminated grille and black strakes up front with gloss black diffuser and full-width reflector at the rear all serve to set the vRS apart. The black glass roof is to be standard fitment on all versions of the coupe, not just the vRS.

They have nailed the looks but vRS is about performance more than anything. Can an all-electric vRS deliver? Skoda’s new sporting flagship gets twin motors and four-wheel drive, plus the largest 82kWh battery that is so far available for any VW Group model that uses the MEB architecture on which all the Enyaq iV family is based.

With a total output of 295PS (220kW), backed by maximum torque of 460Nm, the first fully electric vRS sprints to 62mph from standstill in 6.5 seconds, just a tenth of a second quicker than the fond-remembered petrol Octavia vRS of a few years ago.

That car would hit 155mph, but battery cars are reigned back on top speed to preserve range, though at least the new vRS is allowed to go to 111mph rather than the 100mph that other Enyaq iVs are limited to. The range is said to be 339 miles, subject to the normal electric-car conditions. The range has been boosted slightly thanks to the more slippery coupe shape (Cd: 0.234). The vRS, along with a new SportLine trim level, gets a slightly lowered body and sports suspension.

In the past (and the vRS tag goes back to the year 2000) there have been diesel, petrol and hybrid Skoda vRS models, the latter still available in the form of the 245PS (180kW) Octavia vRS PHEV. All have carved a niche for themselves, especially in the UK, combining performance with a practical side, something the Enyaq iV vRS Coupe sets out to maintain.

Skoda claims the more elegant body has little effect on the Enyaq’s functionality, this 4.65m long car with its long 2.76m wheelbase and flat floor offering cabin room for five with, says Skoda, only marginally less headroom in the back. The boot is big (570 litres) and the back seats fold flat for bicycle-carrying ability. For those who want more functionality, a vRS version of the Enyak iV SUV is likely but so far not confirmed.

A whopping 13-inch touch screen dominates the interior which is otherwise clean and simple in the modern idiom, and predictably for Skoda is big on natural, sustainably processed and recycled materials. The vRS gets black perforated leather with grey piping on the seats and on the multifunction sports steering wheel, with the dash covered in leather-look material.

The standard Digital Cockpit can be optionally supplemented by a head-up display with augmented reality. Features you get for the vRS include 20-inch alloys (with 21s optional) the light-up “Crystal Face” grille, full-LED Matrix headlights and LED taillights. Other new coupe versions of the Enyaq iV start with a single-motor 201PS (150kW) version and all are available to order from May, at prices still to be confirmed.