CJ is a former Associate Editor of CAR, and now runs parent company Bauer Media’s Digital Automotive Hub – the in-house team that provides much of the online content for CAR and sister site Parkers.co.uk as well as helping out with CAR magazine.
is a no longer a niche people moving product but a flagship technology demonstrator. As with so many things EV, Kia and Hyundai have led the way here, with the impressive– monstrous great things that we rate rather highly.
Now Skoda is getting in on the act with the forthcoming Peaqform – which means a wrapped exterior and an even more heavily covered interior. Sorry for the suspense, but it will ultimately be worth the wait. This is a proper flagship, done the proper Skoda way. Which is to say the Peaq is packed with clever details – including a frunk that’s large enough to store the retractable parcel shelf – and sound ergonomics. It’s spacious enough for seven adults , offers tangible comfort, and is promising value that will see the far less accommodatingWhat isn’t? As well as being the firm’s first all-electric seven-seater and more highfalutin than any other model in the range, the Peaq – which is pronounced Peak, just in case the stylised mountain camouflage didn’t make that clear – is a full-fat expression of Skoda’s new Modern Solid design language. This has shown up in parts on theThis manifests in the form of sleek surface treatment and, we were told during the presentation, narrow T-shaped lights front and rear, as well as intriguingly labelled Techdeck and Loop design elements. The Techdeck is the black bit we’ve already seen on the Enyaq and Elroq that sort of stands in for a conventional grille – usefully incorporating some of the forward sensors less visibly – while the Loop refers to the way this black detailing will circle round beneath this. The large rear pillar is also part of the thinking, while the aero finishing behind this creates the illusion the Peaq is more flat-backed than it really is – the rear windscreen is quite heavily angled behind this and beneath the adjoining roof spoiler. Note also the first Skoda use of, which contribute to greater aerodynamics efficiency than anything else in this segment – including the Ioniq 9 with digital door mirrors. Sounds mad, but such door handles have become a little controversial in recent months, with China moving to ban them outright over safety fears. Skoda being Skoda has accounted for this; not only can they be operated manually, capacitors in the power-supply chain mean they should still function electrically in the immediate aftermath of a catastrophic accident. They also have a ‘hammer effect’ function that theoretically shakes loose ice and prevents them from freezing solid. Along similar lines, the Peaq has a second ice-scraper tucked into the tailgate, just in case the one under the charging connection flap isn’t accessible; having experienced a fuel filler flap freezing shut in an Octavia and causing exactly this issue that’s niche but welcome news. We’ll get to what we can tell you about the interior in that section below, but suffice to say there’s a new vertically mounted 13.6-inch infotainment screen powered by a new Android operating system. But physical controls for the air-conditioning, the electric windows and the volume all remain. Underneath lies Skoda’s longest implementation of the MEB platform. At nearly 4.9m, the Peaq isn’t quite as lengthy as aThere will be three Peaq powertrain variants: the rear-wheel-drive 60 and 90, and the all-wheel-drive 90x. The number refers loosely to the battery capacity, which is 63kWh and 91kWh. Skoda’s head of product development for battery electric vehicles, Dr Lars Leway, promises that’s enough for over 610km offrom the 90 and 90x, and at least 430km from the 60. The Vision 7S set a 600km range goal, and Skoda has achieved that. Each version gets a different power output, too, from improved electric motors. The 60 makes do with 150kW while the 90 gets 210kW and the 90x 270kW . Acceleration is brisk, with 0-62mph in 8.6sec, 7.1sec and 6.7sec. A second-generation heat pump adds to the efficiency. Skoda hasn’t gone crazy with the charging architecture. Referring to the firm’s own data from its own customers’ charging habits, Leway reckons very few EV drivers are desperate to take advantage of the marginally faster charging speeds that significantly more expensive 800v technology brings. Shying away from this helps Skoda keep costs down. So the Peaq is a 400v machine, with a 160kW DC charging max for the 60 and 195kW for the 90 models – though Leway says that latter figure is a little conservative at this stage. More important from his perspective is the flat charging curve, which allows the Peaq to maintain maximum charging speed for longer. As such, 10-80 per cent is set to take 27-28 minutes, with the smaller 63kWh battery marginally the faster.Our ‘covered drive’ experience was at the wheel of a camoed 90 variant, travelling in convoy with three other Peaqs and a leading pair of chaperones in an Enyaq and a Kodiaq. Following a route around the urban circumference of Lake Como in Italy, which even off-season isn’t exactly short of traffic. Not the greatest opportunity to really get to grips with a new car – and one that isn’t quite finally signed-off, either. But still reasonably revealing about everything except the high-speed refinement and aggressive cornering behaviour. Equipped with Dynamic Chassis Control suspension, our proto-Peaq is unfazed by the occasional section of rippled tarmac and shrugs off sunken drain covers. The difference between the softest and hardest damper settings in this scenario doesn’t seem vast, but it is distinct, and will likely become more apparent over broken British tarmac. Comfort is certainly more comfortable than Sport and, as ever with the latest DCC system, you have the option to go beyond the default settings in either direction. This means an even softer ride is available, as well as an even harder one – with a setting Skoda had denominated Normal slap bang in the middle. Even at the very softest end of the damping, the Peaq doesn’t seem to get too floaty, while the hardest isn’t teeth-rattling. A chassis engineer we spoke to said they’d surprised themselves with how deft the things feels, considering its size. The Peaq is whisper quiet at these modest speeds, and despite that size will happily sprint forward into a gap with right foot planted. There are three levels of regenerative braking, broken down into regular D and two strengths of B mode. Switching between D and B is easily done via the column-mounted gear selector, but you have to dive into to infotainment system to adjust the B level. Sportline variants will get paddles on the back of their unique three-spoke steering wheel to adjust the regen, but they’re not present on the two-spoke wheel we’ve got here. B mode delivers one-pedal driving for the first time in an electric Skoda, regardless of strength setting. Which is neat enough, since you may find the higher-regen too abrupt, especially if you’re a bit over-reactive with the accelerator pedal. The electric power steering, beefed up for the Peaq to cope with the weight, offers Comfort and Sport settings, too. It feels very linear and not over-dulled at the centre-point, though it was hard to give it too much stick under the circumstances. Sport is certainly weightier than Comfort, however, to the point where it might actually become a little tiresome around town. Perhaps most pertinently, despite its ability to carry seven adults, the Peaq never felt intimidatingly wide or unwieldy, even squeezing between buildings and on-coming trucks. This may be a distinct advantage over the Hyundai-Kia competition when it comes to getting less confident drivers relaxed behind the wheel. However, the brakes might need a little more work. The pedal is quite soft and there was one moment where it felt like it took a little too long to bring the Peaq to a halt. Like other Skoda EVs, it uses drum brakes on the rear; since electric cars typically use their friction brake less due to the braking effect available from the motor, rear discs are particularly prone to corrosion, and drums are a solution to that. In this instance it felt more like a calibration issue – perhaps related to the hand-over between regen and friction – rather than anything to do with the use of drums. According to the trip computer, our Peaq was averaging 16.4kWh/100km. That’s equivalent to 3.79 miles per kWh, which is how we usually measure EV efficiency. Not a bad result for such a big vehicle, but that was at restrained speeds with plenty of regen. Skoda is targeting an official 15.5kWh/100km .This was largely under wraps in the test car, but we could at least get a sense of the structure and the space, and a few of Skoda’s latest clever tricks were also visible in places. Plus the product team spoke rather a lot about these in the presentation… The dashboard is quite an unfussy affair, dominated by clean horizontal lines and that large central screen – regardless of the cover over it. The 10.25-inch digital instrument cluster is a free-standing item, rather than adjoined as in so many modern cars, and notable for its frameless bezel, which looks nice and modern. The double-decker centre console houses a neat set of toggles for the climate control, and beneath that in the test car were a pair of Magsafe wireless chargers – very neat. Among the other new Simply Clever elements is a small folding table that mounts in the middle somehow, working in conjunction with a Relax Package with extending leg rest for the front two seats – part of Skoda’s plan to make the Peaq’s interior more like a ‘second living room’ and a more alluring place to spend time when you’re charging. Space is not in short supply. There’s a lot of leg room in the second row, and if you slide that forward a bit, this 5’11” adult slots into the third row without too much difficulty. The seats aren’t the most supportive back there – the high floor means your thighs lift away from the seat base – but it is functionally practical. The only rear Isofix mounting points are on the two outer middle-row seats, though being a VW Group product you’ll be able to have a set on the front passenger seat, too. The boot is officially 299 litres big with all seven seats in position. That’s technically smaller than the 340 litres available in the Kodiaq, but the Peaq offers more floor space from the lip of the boot to the seat backs. With plenty of experience loading luggage into seven-seaters, we believe that will actually make the Peaq the more practical option. In five-seater mode – and Skoda will sell five-seat only versions of the Peaq, incidentally – you get 935 litres of boot space, rising to 1010 litres if you utilise the available mesh partition and load to the roof. There’s space for the roller parcel shelf beneath the boot floor, but also under the bonnet, where the Peaq has a 37-litre storage space ideal for also carting about a charging cable. An optional 2.12m2 panoramic roof brings additional light to all three seating rows; with nine electrochromatic segments this can instantly be shaded using what is essentially blown-up liquid crystal display technology. Meanwhile, an optional 16-channel Sonos hi-fi upgrade is said to deliver ‘the best sound ever in a Skoda’. A ‘camping mode’ will allow you to keep the AC on and the alarm off while locking yourselves inside. And the interior rear-view mirror has a USB port in the back for powering a dashcam.UK specification hasn’t been finalised yet, and typically we deviate from the standardised offerings elsewhere, but there will be a Peaq Sportline from launch. There won’t exactly be many direct rivals. The Peaq feels less gigantic than the EV9 and Ioniq 9, and Skoda plans to sell it for less as well, with a pricing ambition closer to the Peugeot E-5008 – even though the Peugeot isn’t as commodious. That suggest a sub-£50k entry point for the Peaq, rather than upwards of £65k as you’ll need for the Hyundai or Kia. However, we’re still a long way off the UK on sale date – set to be much later in 2026 – and much could change between now and then.Accepting the obvious constraints of this limited testing opportunity of a not-quite-officially-finished car, the signs are looking very good for the Skoda Peaq. The driving experience feels well sorted, being comfortable, swift and unintimidating, and the cabin is spacious, practical and clearly thought out. CJ is a former Associate Editor of CAR, and now runs parent company Bauer Media’s Digital Automotive Hub – the in-house team that provides much of the online content for CAR and sister site Parkers.co.uk as well as helping out with CAR magazine. He’s been writing about cars professionally for nearly two decades, though attempts to hide this fact with an extensive moisturising routine.Head of the Bauer Digital Automotive Hub and former Associate Editor of CAR. Road tester, organiser, reporter and professional enthusiast, putting the driver first
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