Skoda Enyaq iV 80 - long-term review

I’ve come to the realisation that in order to run an electric car you have to be extremely organised when it comes to planning your charging and journeys. I thought all my colleagues were just being dramatic, always thinking ahead. They were not. As soon as you don’t you’ll get caught out.  

Thankfully, peace of mind is soon at hand now I’ve got a home wallbox installed. Before I was having to leave my car in town to charge during the day or stopping en route home to make sure I had enough charge for the morning or the next day’s journey. That, as I’ve hinted, involves being organised. 

There are now many options to choose from and the one I’ve gone for is Hive. Handily, Hive is owned by British Gas who are also my energy supplier. 

But don’t be fooled (like I was) that installation is a quick process. In fact there are lots of checks needed on your house before you can even consider one. I thought it would be as easy as having a smart meter fitted. Wrong again. 

Once you’ve bought your box, you have to send off photos of your fuse board and the accessibility of where you want the box. Then we had to have a two-hour inspection to check the amount of maximum load our fuse box could take. The types of other products you are running that will affect that load. Still with me? Here comes the jargon. 

I was on a 60amp load management device and with all my devices I was under my maximum so adding a 32amp charger was fine. But if I had perhaps an electric shower, this would have meant I would have been near my limit and therefore a delay to the process. National power would have had to have given me a bigger cable in to my house. Cue digging up your drive. Ouch. 

A few weeks later an engineer came to install the box, which took most of a day. Which again, surprised me. But once he explained all the safety trip devices that are needed I actually felt quite reassured my house wasn’t going to burst into flames. 

The charging gubbins itself is controlled by the Hive app. I find it quite handy as I can link it to my energy tariff so I know how much I’ve spent…

As I said earlier you need to be organised and a box definitely alleviates one less hassle knowing the Skoda can be charged overnight ready for usage the next day. But how much range am I actually getting? At full charge the display tells me roughly 230-240 miles but in the real world for everyday usage I’m getting about 180 miles. Maybe more when the weather picks up. 

Not quite the acclaimed 321 miles. I’m finding that extremely disappointing. It means at a push I could do the 180-mile round trip to the office from my house, but in reality I need to top up on the way. Which means leaving earlier, planning a stop that’s about over half way and allowing charging time of about 45mins. Like I said you need to be organised. And have bundles of patience...