Living with an electric car? The TRUTH!

Would you ever buy an electric car?

I would never mount a bike like this - the wobbling freaks me out.

Thanks for the test @carwow - testing the Enyaq on Saturday if all works out.

This was quite thorough, great real world testing.

EV's are a waste of money and range is shocking they need another 20years of R&D petrol rules

EVs suck. I have had an ID3 for over 2yrs. Going to get an ICE car next year!

In Australia, the standard 4wd is rated for 2,500-3,000 kg of towing capacity. Plus bikes, roof racks, bulls bars, spot lights etc. It’s seriously a big business down here.

No EV for me for a long time until the technology, range and fast charging are all proven matters.

Wonder how Mat got out of the roof box.

if you attach a big load on your ev the charge will be done by the time you get out of your driveway

Next time fix a full size caravan the near massive ones used by caravan freaks

Roof box full of battery's to extend range

RIP Eddy Wally

Yes. Had two EVs. Much better than ICE cars.

That's not a caravan.

Good video but you forgot towing caravan with everything on and passengers, or was it so bad you didn't want to post it

Getting a hybrid, and I will switch to an electric car after a few years!

My IV80 is arriving next month with AWD & a tow hitch.
Very good review Matt, please do the same with self charging hybrids, I would love to hear the truth about their wonderful 🤪 MPG figures!

Forget it I live in a hot climate have to have A/C on all of the time and lights a lot from down pours.

Didn't know there was a speed limit for towing. No wonder the Top Gear guys hate them.

Brilliant review, thanks. I will pass on an EV ha ha

So using the touch screen to turn stuff on and off driving at 70 mph on a motorway is SAFE!!!!!

Very nice video, I second the comment on the buggy infotainment system. I have an octavia RS iV (bought new, not second hand) and within the first year I had to bring it back 5 times!! The software is soooooo crap it is unbelievable. They had to replace the steering wheel with all electrical components, a boardcomputer in the trunk and a completely new software pack. Now that I have seen the same thing happen here I highly recommend staying away from Skoda until these things are fixed.

How are the car companies getting away with false claims about range. I was looking at the Lexus UX 300e. Claimed range is 180miles, when you read driver experiences it turns out to be 120 miles - exaggerating the truth is one thing but a shortfall of 60miles becomes a lie.

Can a public charging point accommodate a vehicle with caravan attached? The marked bay only seems big enough for a single vehicle.

I think it might be worth testing it with a car with a more powerful motor/higher towing capacity. Like the Volkswagen ID4 or the Kia EV6 (Kia seem to be a lot more honest then their competitors about their claimed range).

Because bear in mind the Skoda isn't the most efficient electric car and is basically the electric equivalent of a Ford Focus or Fiesta and only barely powerful enough for passengers, plus it's heavier than a ICE car so that doesn't help either.

Another amazing review from Matt. This answers lots of questions pertaining to EV

EV? No chance, even though I don't tow....

Simply make Lockheed Martin hand over free energy that they power their space craft with to everyone so that we can all have complete freedom.

What would it's range be towing the 2 berth caravan with 2 people in the car and all their luggage and 2 bikes on the roof?

Everybody now realizes electric vehicles are only good for town

great review, think this answers all the concerns with buying an EV...

Electric cars seem to take your attention away from the road due to all inputs have to be done on a touch screen. Here in Canada when winter comes , the cold zaps your range by as much as half battery power. Heater going, defroster going. Im not sold on electric.🤷‍♂️

We are being sold on the benefits of EVs, which is now being accelerated to being 'forced' by ill-informed (or maniacal) governments to 'save' the planet! The truth is EVs are not environmentally kind from their manufacture to daily use, not least the electricity use to charge them is Hardy clean! The impact of personal cars on the global environment is negligible (how far are we from electric aircraft / trucks / shipping / industry) ....its just another global scam costing tax payers their freedom of choice!

very interisting review i loved it

From an old car guy ... operating a laptop whilst driving ... are we serious? I'll take even more care driving defensively than I used to.

Electric cars also destroy the environment including releasing greenhouse gases through resource mining, manufacturing processes pollutants and ultimately going to the landfill in mass droves. The pollution they cause is simply unnecessary as is the amount of urban space squandered on parking and other paved over autocentric wastes. They also perpetuate urban sprawl, redlining, the food deserts that come from that invariably, along with cities that are not navigable as a pedestrian or bicyclist and are, in fact, inhospitable to humanity along with being horrendous towards animals. They add to traffic congestion. Commodification of societal needs and normalization of trying to substitute rampant consumerism where we need standardized, regulated and uniform public utilities doesn’t work.


Putting the financial burden of transportation inefficiently and directly on the individual citizen is simply not wise or fair and hasn’t been the norm for even 80 years. We need to invest in commuter rail that’s properly implemented as it typically is overseas. A commuter rail system is an engineering marvel while buses are just buses. The most reliable predictor of a neighborhood being impoverished is if it has no commuter rail connection. The American people are apathetic through decades of disenfranchisement and a lot of that marginalization (eg Robert Moses’s racist urban renewal) is through divestment of public infrastructure, utilities and programs to help the American people. How many special places were destroyed fated to become mere parking lots? How many lives were wrecked as entire communities and cultural centers of minorities were wiped off the face of the world as though an atomic bomb had been dropped on it in order to force through highway robbery highways were pushed through the wreckage and rubble of razed annihilation that those same victims now in atomized diaspora had to then help subsidize which is often the case with the rapid onslaught and constantly rupturing outbreak of mediocre monstrosities being raised all over the place currently, looming gloomily over neighborhoods they’ve doomed as ugly tombstones in the spaces of what was demolished for them to be erected. We’re past the point of car dominated transportation being anything better than a tragic hindrance or an outright travesty. Public works materially improving life for the taxpaying citizenry will bolster civic pride.


Transcontinental High Speed Rail should integrate seamlessly with commuter rail networks so it can evenly function as one cohesive system and this will convert flyover country back into a thriving heartland by functioning as an artery of commute and commerce which will reduce clustering on the coasts. Similarly, wholly integrated circuits of commuter rail blended with interurban routes, light rail lines, street car grids, subways, and even trolleys along with ferries functioning together as a comprehensive series of interwoven systems would prevent people from having to live on top of each other in city centers in order to have quick access to urban cores and downtown areas so this would stimulate our local economies and prevent gentrification from demolishing cherished heirlooms of our historicity, destroying our classic neighborhoods, shredding the fabric of our communities and toppling our civic landmarks and architectural heirlooms along with other social capital such as venerable culture generating venues.

Numerous studies show that built environments of homogenously bleak and bland duplitecture dreck made from extremely toxic and highly flammable petrochemicals that profiteering developers push on us for their privatized gains to our public loss for the riches of themselves and corporate slumlords not only cause homelessness from being financially inaccessible to most Americans, but also cause depression from creating such a devastatingly sterile, cold, unloving urban habitat that’s too congested and overcrowded to work properly as a correctly engineered built environment. Our roadways are overcrowded and no amount of widening them and adding lanes will do anything to help it because it just leads to induced demand that inevitably grinds to a halt at snags and bottlenecks down the road. Shouldn’t American cities be thriving centers of culture and character rather than austere and chintzy morasses of mediocrity?

I believe that we can design the cities of our nation to reflect a future that embraces humanity and that we also must for America to have any sort of a bright future ahead of it. Right now we are mired in the destruction of our cities from the inward attacking neocolonial oppressors who weaponize their clout of wealth against the nation for their own off-shore un-American gains of privileged, parasitic, private profits. This greed fueled anti-social exploitation is present day feudalism driving us into another gilded age. Tons of new brutalist “luxury living” housing units remain empty serving only as financial assets in investment portfolios of hedge fund and permanent capital firm cretins sheltering dubiously acquired wealth instead of as direly needed shelter for humans. We deserve a landscape we can be proud of and country should come first before corporate looting and exploitation. Legacies are important and live on forever.

With space opened up in our cities we could rebuild beloved structures gone from economic and environmental disaster utilizing new technologies such as hempcrete and 3-D printing. We could create vertical agriculture farms etc. on spots currently now just serving as paved over squares and nothing more. We can extend democracy into offering the taxpayer residents democratic say in what their city consists of, how it looks and how it operates promoting civic engagement and participation.

Mask muppets... Didn't anyone tell them masks don't do anything?

Buy this vehicle and take it vacation. Take two days to go the same distance it use to take you one day to travel. Wow!

The track is not the real world

No

NO i would not buy one ,how many EVs do see with a tow bar ? that said a caravan or trailer is very handy you can put a 5/10 Kw generator in it and charge up as you go along .
They are far from being green ,they use appx 3 times the copper than an ice car ,size for size they weigh a lot more , to get a green tax duct the wiring looms are made from veg oil when the car is parked up the rats /mice smell the veg oil based plastic and then proceed to eat through the looms , the home energy bills are bad enough now when a Kwh goes into the £2/3 bracket and it will that is going to put a few people off one .
So for those few reasons im out !

Pleeeeeeease Carwow start to convert mesurements for us. You are using mile, lite, kilogram in a mixed way. It can't be that difficult for editors Pleeeeeease Carwow 😊

From conversations I had with a friend who holds a degree in Electrical Engineering from Bristol University, a fully charged battery delivers power at an increased rate.
When you use the charge, performance and duration from lower charge levels is also reduced....
That may sound logical, but what it suggests is that the tube the energy is flowing through reduces in size as the total amount of energy reduces...
This suggests that for the tests to meet truly rigorous standards, Matt should have started each test with 100% charge...
Get back in the car Matt and do it all again,.... You'll also have to get Skoda the give you three cars, not just one...... 🤣

I presume it would be slightly more efficient if you were on a motorway rather than going around in circles.

Thing is, it only got 100 miles while towing the caravan, with only Matt in it. Once your whole family is in there, with heating/AC, charging tablets, the radio, luggage… what’s it gonna get? Like 60 miles?
Buy the Tesla, and drive to a hotel to go on holiday 😂

Before seeing anything.. it will be very very bad (imo).
Well, we'll see :-)

So towing a caravan with the family and luggage will probably reduce the range to about 80 miles? I can see caravans disappearing from the roads.

Hope hydrogen blasts electric out of the water! Retrofitting a stand gasoline(petrol) auto(car) may be a savior, at least wishing so! Greetings from a Brit residing in the USA.

Electric or diesel/petrol when towing a caravan basically you will use twice as much fuel than you would when not towing. Quite why Matt is supprised is a suprise.