When Liz and Graham picked up the keys to their brand-new electric Enyaq, they had an idea. To embark on a European tour with a big first destination in mind: the Škoda Museum in the Czech Republic. We caught up with them to see how they found driving such long distances in their first ever electric car.
Although we have previously driven to Europe in ICE vehicles, we were drawn towards a longer round trip to include a variety of interesting locations. This would include places we had been before but only briefly, our favourite place in Austria which we have been visiting for around 15 years, and places that have piqued our interest on TV programmes. We enjoyed the whole trip, although the early highlight was visiting the Škoda Museum, chiefly due to the wonderful hospitality of the people who looked after us during the day there.
Having never had any previous experience of Škoda cars, we viewed, drove, and subsequently bought our Enyaq based on its perceived suitability for us. We were curious about the history of the brand, so we started looking online and came across the site for the Škoda Museum. Learning that it was open to the public gave us the germ of an idea to incorporate a visit into a longer trip.
We live in Hampshire and drove from there to the Eurotunnel channel crossing, arriving in France then driving through Belgium and Holland then Germany.
During our journey towards Prague, we noticed we could make a detour for a short visit to Schloss Colditz (in the former East Germany). On arrival in Prague we found our B&B and took the Metro into the city centre for a quick evening visit, then the following day drove to Mlada Boleslav for our visit to the Škoda Museum which was an absolute delight.
After Prague we drove south towards Austria, with a short visit to Cesky Krumlov (a UNESCO site), which is another beautiful town. From there we journeyed south to stay in the Austrian Tirol for a week, then on to Strasbourg in France for a few days before visiting family in Ober-Beerbach, whom we had met during our last winter holiday to in January. From there we drove to our final sightseeing city, Cologne. Here we were able to park securely in the hotel and walk into the city centre to experience the Cathedral, the Eau de Cologne 4711 shop, and enjoy coffee and cake at the celebrated Café Reichard. From Cologne we drove to the Eurotunnel terminal at Coquelles, for the le Shuttle train back to the UK, and onwards to home.
The Enyaq is our first EV and we quickly became accustomed to the differences between it and an ICE car. We found the Enyaq to be comfortable, extremely spacious and a great long-distance tourer capable of eating up the miles. Driving aids such as adaptive cruise control and lane departure warning are a real asset, especially driving a right-hand drive car in a country where roads, cars and drivers are designed for left-hand drive. The ability to change certain measurement units independently (speed, distance, energy consumption) was invaluable, as was the ability to change the LED matrix headlamp orientation from driving on the left to driving on the right, simply in the infotainment system.
We divided our driving time roughly 50/50, taking the opportunity to stop and change drivers, use the services, and charge, all during the same stop if possible.
We found the whole driving experience straightforward. The ride is very comfortable and the car is capacious, so there was no problem carrying a variety of clothes and personal belongings for four weeks on the road. It is a very easy car to live with, and although we had already covered around 16,000 miles since new, this extended time afforded us an opportunity to learn a lot more about its onboard systems, infotainment menus, satnav, and Powerpass map.
We aimed to be reasonably efficient with our journey time, by scheduling stops every couple of hours in order to swap drivers, have a rest break, and charge the car if necessary. We probably needed to stop more often than the car did!
Throughout the six countries of our travels, charging was straightforward. We mostly utilised rapid charging stations on the Škoda Powerpass network. At IONITY chargers, the car is verified automatically by Plug & Charge. Plus, our hotel in Austria had good value 22kW AC chargers we used to charge on arrival and before departure.
We would not hesitate to encourage others to undertake a long-distance trip using their electric vehicle, much the same as in an ICE model. We certainly spent more time researching country driving rules, planning a multitude of weather-dependent clothing, selecting accommodation, and enjoying the adventure, than we did worrying about range and charging.
During the heatwave of our trip the daily temperature was around 24-34 degrees C, therefore we used the auto air conditioning all of the time, usually at 19 degrees. Despite this, our car, which has a listed consumption of 3.6 miles/kWh, averaged a very creditable 4.07 over the whole trip.