TELL me you remember the magic days of cereal box toys. Of course you do.
The thrill of a rubber popper or pen topper falling into your breakfast bowl was the reason an Eighties kid jumped out of bed in the morning.
Unless, like me, you had cheating, thieving older brothers who’d raid a new box before the last one had been eaten. That was totally out of order.
I mean, how many pairs of 3D glasses do you actually need? Tossers. As for the coolest cereal toy ever, I think we’d all agree on the Kellogg’s bike spoke reflector. I had two on my BMX.
Which is exactly what could have inspired the glow-up wheels on this all-electric Skoda. I’d like to think so, anyway.
Driving at night through Karlovy Vary (a.k.a. the Czech spa town where Casino Royale was filmed) the letters S-K-O-D-A lit up like a Catherine wheel.
They looked ace. As did the illuminated bonnet badge. Sadly, these things are just experimental, as the EU fun police would ban them anyway. But I do have good news.
The exterior of this Vision iV concept car is very, very close to the real thing coming early 2021.
And that includes the horizontal light bar across the front grille, apparently.
I like it. More than a Jaguar I-Pace. More than an Audi e-tron. And, being a Skoda, it’ll be much cheaper than both.
Just ignore the swing-out doors and Star Wars interior, as they are pure fantasy. Now, I should perhaps explain that iV is Skoda’s new sub-brand for electrified cars.
The all-electric Citigo, out January 2020, will be badged CITIGOe iV and soon followed by the Superb iV plug-in hybrid.
But this ultra-yellow SUV coupe will be the first Skoda based on VW Group’s electric MEB platform.
Which means it will have the same gubbins as other battery-only cars from Volkswagen, Audi, Seat and, er, Ford.
Price: £36,000 est
Battery: 83kWh
Power: 306hp
0-62mph: 5.9 secs
Top speed: 112mph
Range: 310 miles
CO2: 0g/km
Out: 2021
That’s right — Ford has signed a deal to use MEB for at least one EV from 2023. Vision iV is four-wheel drive with two electric motors — one on each axle — producing 306hp. It’ll run 0-62mph in less than six seconds, which is hot-hatch fast.
You’ll have to take Skoda’s word for it, though. I didn’t risk doing anything daft in a £1million concept with Stanislav, the car’s minder, sat right behind me. I know the rules. Hurt his car and he’ll hurt me.
Now, we all know the advantages of an electric car: Instant torque, acres of interior space, zero-emissions. It won’t stain your conscience or the lungs of little ones. But the disadvantages remain: Range and charge time.
Skoda promises Vision iV will cover 310 miles and the 83kWh battery can be juiced up to 80 per cent in 30 minutes.
We’ll see. A second electric-only SUV will follow before the end of 2021. Here’s an idea.
While we’re waiting, Skoda, how about knocking up some Skoda bike spoke reflectors and giving them to schools across Britain? That’d be class. You read it here first.
By Vicky Parrott, editor of drivingelectric.com
PICTURE this. You want a roomy family car that’s not too huge. Maybe something that looks chunky and cool, like a Vauxhall Mokka or a Toyota C-HR.
But you want to go electric, because it’ll save you loads of money on fuel and tax, will be good for air quality and all the rest of it.
Problem is, compact electric SUVs are expensive. Options such as the Kia e-Niro and Hyundai Kona are getting on for £35,000, while even a standard family hatch like the Nissan Leaf is £28k.
Well, the MG ZS EV could solve your conundrum. The pure-electric MG costs from £22,000, will do 160 miles between charges in fair-weather real-world driving.
A 7kW wallbox charger (which costs around £400 and requires off-road parking) delivers a full battery in under seven hours. A motorway rapid charger will get 100 miles of range in 30 minutes.
And d’you know what? It’s good to drive. It feels properly nippy up to 40mph and fares just fine in faster motorway traffic. The interior looks particularly good in the higher of the two trims.
That has a £2,000 premium but adds a panoramic sunroof and leatherette upholstery to the standard touchscreen nav system with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, air-con, rear parking sensors, and semi-autonomous driving mode.
But there are a multitude of frustrations you have to live with. The touchscreen can be slow to respond and doesn’t show charging stations.
The charging indicator is barely visible in daylight, the driver’s seat doesn’t go low enough, the steering wheel doesn’t adjust for reach . . . and finally, the ZS beeps the horn if you get out of the car and leave the key inside.
That is intensely annoying if you have young kids and regularly do just that to get them out before grabbing your bags.
Given the price, the MG ZS EV is decent on most fronts. But if MG could sort out those little things that blight the day-to-day use – it would have a star on its hands.
