Skoda Elroq review

Again, all very familiar, particularly if you’ve previously had a go in an Enyaq. It looks smart if not particularly flashy, which gives it a very conventional feel. There’s a mix of fabric/suede/leather upholstery depending on what trim you go for, and carbon effect decorative trim on offer if that’s to your taste.

Directly ahead of you sits a five-inch digital display, which is precisely as small as it sounds. It’s all part of Skoda’s minimalist approach and designed to show only the most important information including speed, navigation instructions, assistance system info and driving data. But more info can be shown on the head-up display (including dynamic navigation arrows) and the two combine well.

Absolutely nothing minimal about the 13-inch infotainment whopper that sits front and centre of the dashboard, though. 

Shock, horror, etc. Is it a nightmare to use?

It’s smart to look at but quite busy. There’s a lot going on, though once you’ve had a play and learnt what everything does it’s easy enough to get used to.

At the top of the screen there’s a row of customisable shortcuts, for things like the driver assist settings (particularly handy to turn the speed limit assist on/off), while down the bottom of the screen there’s more shortcut buttons for your heated seats, climate controls, audio, satnav and whatnot.

Directly underneath the screen is a touch slider that allows you to adjust the cabin temp and audio volume – which as ever doesn’t work as well as it should. And then beneath that, there’s a small row of proper physical buttons, again mostly shortcut buttons that take you to climate, drive mode, and driver assist submenus in the touchscreen. See what we mean? Information overload.

It’s a shame the Elroq doesn’t get the Superb’s multi-purpose ‘Smart Dial’ setup, which does away with the touch slider and shortcut row and neatly takes on a lot of the heavy lifting. At least you get proper steering wheel controls though…

How much space is there?

It’s fine up front, and even with the seats in the position of our six foot two test driver we had plenty of legroom in the back. Headroom was fine too.

You get a 470-litre boot (that’s slightly bigger than the Kia EV3 and significantly more than the Volvo EX30), which rises to 1,580 litres with the seats down.

There’s also the usual Skoda party bag of ‘Simply Clever’ features, but one new addition we particularly liked was the storage net for the charging cable under the parcel shelf. Manufacturers have long been trying to figure out where to keep these, and under the boot floor simply doesn’t work if you have a load of shopping there.

No vehicle-to-load (V2L) charging, mind, which would let you power external devices like you're able to with the Kia. Simply Too Clever, perhaps?