A drive with the new Škoda ENYAQ

I had the chance to drive the iV80 on Monday. I've driven a lot of EVs before.

I'm impressed - got to see it last year at the unveiling already, but driving it assured me what a great car it is. Takeaways:

✔️ Feels luxurious. This one was the iv80 (rear-wheel drive) version so it won't be identical to what our 3 iv60's will be that we've ordered for taxi already, but can't be very different.

✔️The turning radius is impressive, probably because of the rear-wheel drive. Waaaaay better than the 2018 LEAF I drove today.

✔️Lots of space. I can easily see myself putting my two kid seats in the back and drive comfortably, shouldn't be a problem.

✔️A bunch of little nice details like: the haptic volume button (slide with your finger to +/- volume, located in front of the infotainment screen), the umbrella inside the front door, ice scraper inside the boot lid (although it looks a bit weak for Estonian winters), the 'leg wave' opening and closing the trunk and so on.

✔️The driving feel - the 'softness' that usually comes with German cars is well present here, the sound isolation seemed good.

✔️Nice and big side mirrors - really, felt like driving a bus.

✔️ The oomph when accelerating seemed to be lesser than other EV's at first, I thought it's slower but it just turned out that it's really fast when accelerating, you can't just feel it. It's smooth.

✔️Something out of Tesla's playbook (and ID.3 too?): When putting your foot on the brake, the car 'boots up' by itself. And when putting on the electronic parking brake and releasing your foot, the car 'shuts down'. Makes absolute sense.

❌ I couldn't find a way to turn off the e-motor sound, which was especially loud when backing up (it might be because of just the one speaker up front). I always turn it off the first thing when I sit in my LEAF.

❌ There seems to be no way to make the car remember which driving profile I chose (sport/eco/normal). I needed to choose Sport every time I started the car. Btw, the infotainment menu did resemble that of ID.3 for me, which makes sense as they're both built on MEB platform, maybe sharing other details too. But I've driven an ID.3 (which I loved) and if these are in an exactly the same price class, then I'd personally go for the Enyaq.

Let me know if you have any questions about the car, maybe I'll have the answers. I had a great conversation also on the Škoda Enyaq UK Facebook group (link). A big thank-you goes out to my friend Maris for taking the pictures (her FB business page: link)!

What do you think of the new Enyaq?
Is it a serious contender in the EV world?