Skoda Superb 2020 Plug-In Hybrid - But Is It Really? 

Keep them coming it can work in very small circumstances, if doing these help you get you the manufactures evs when they come then keep it up

It is interesting to hear you say, that there is not much left to say about EVs alone. I am becoming bored with many of the EV channels I subscribe to. How many ways can you say EVs are quite, quick, and can save you money. "Fully Charged" has diversified into a green energy channel. Many have just become car review channels. But your channel has become more about your personality and humor, along with your EV experience. Which is why I look forward to your posts. I especially enjoy videos with your brother, your family, and your friends. Keep up the good work.

Phevs work well for some people. Particularly in the 2nd hand market and isn't it all about lowering c02 and fossil fuels. Stopped watching kryten he is so anti phev.

Couldn't agree with you more. Quite happy to watch a channel that reviews a car that I am unlikely to buy. Firstly it makes me feel mildly smug about driving a BEV and secondly there will be viewers who become better informed, it does appeal to or are capable of being swayed towards it.

I thought the intro was spot on, and is how I also consider RU-vid channels. I consider your channel to be the best EV channel out there for the balance of car reviews and real life ownership. I stopped watching Fully Charged when every EV was fantastic unless it was based on a petrol car not part of VAG. Plus the constant ranting. PHEVs do continue to have a role for some. BEVs are still only a no brainer when combined with home charging in most parts of the country.

However the electric miles aren't free, I reckon they cost about the same as petrol miles as pence per mile ~15ppm unless you have an electric vehicle tariff and then its about how much you use in electricity for the rest of your house. Its certainly less than simple to calculate whether the hybrid is worth it, based on the higher purchase price I'd guess that its probably worse value for money than a petrol engine at the moment given high electricity prices, is it greener? maybe, depends how much CO2 was produced making the batteries and mining rare earth metals to produce them.

This exactly my situation. We have a commute of about 5 miles, but with a long journey of 200 miles every few months (during non-pandemic times). This car is perfect for our family of 4. I anticipate it'll be electric-only during the short city commute.

Me too. Day to day I really wish for a BEV but when we have vacation I would have to rent a car and/or book plane tickets for my family. With the PHEV I just fill up the car with my family and put the cargo in my trailer. But the infrastructure and available BEVs for my price range are improving in increments. After I bought my PHEV, the BEV situation have changed from impossible to doable, at least in summer weather. PHEVs are good transition technology and while BEVs are more efficient the energy stored in petrol more than makes up for inefficient engines when it comes to towing over longer distances.

Model 3 has a much smaller boot and charge time is still much longer than filling up with gas. This car provides flexibility for both long and short journeys.

Good point.

OMG, I have a Mayflower, in dire need of restoration, and its razor edges. I wish I had the time, energy and funds to restore the old Mayflower. It was slow but majestic.

Tesla build quality is certainly not top of the class but you are hugely exaggerating with regards to how bad it is. For every unsatisfied review I could point you to a hundred reviews of people satisfied with the build quality. I’m not letting Tesla off the hook and they need to improve but there is a reason why the Model 3 has become a best seller. EVM himself seems very happy with his purchase. Even with the build quality issue potential I’d have a model 3 over the superb any day of the week and I am no fan boy.

@@ewadge Hugely exagerrating? They have had constant issues with every model they have released, almost always come in the bottom few of any unbiased reliability survey and even the ones which don't fall apart usually have some prety atrocious quality issues like the panels which never seem to line up. You may well take one over this and if you fit into the 100-150 mile per day group it may be a better choice. As far as build, quality and back up go it's not even in the same universe.

@@siraff4461 on reliability surveys they do not come anywhere in the bottom. Those spaces are reserved for Land Rovers and BMW. They do come in the bottom for construction quality. Also typically the issues are panel gaps and light cluster water ingress. Those areas are indeed very poor compared to the competitors. But these shouldn’t be confused with reliability. Tesla interiors, although not luxurious are also well put together at least. Look, I’m not saying that Tesla does not need to make big improvements in fit and finish cause they really do. But the drive train has proven to be extremely reliable.

What Tesla is really lagging behind is after sales service and availability of parts. From all I have read, that is sometimes really poor.

@@siraff4461 In my entire life I never heard a single person ever discuss panel gaps ever until Tesla fudsters decided it was the most offensive thing in the world. And yet looking around I see plenty of cars on the road with discoloring and peeling paint, doors that wont shut properly, and all kinds of other far worse issues. If the WORST thing you can think to say about Tesla is they have panel gap issues, then that is basically admitting they have the best cars in the world.

It has them in the front doors.

@@ElectricVehicleMan In both?

Yeah the Enyaq looks ok from the front, head towards the rear it falls apart. Looks like they forgot about design and just bolted a great lump on the back.

Exactly have a 2nd outlander phev i can promise you its way cleaner than my old diesel all electric for local journeys and no compromises when on long trips

Also a 3 year old GTE passat can be had for under 20k so a superb will likely be available to me and make some financial sense when I come to change cars. Just got to watch that "luxury" car tax. Less electric bloody SUV's and some properly useful family cars please, seriously I could more easily fit a rear facing car seat in an Octavia than a kodiak with out compromising my driving position. Fashion, meh

Members get it now. Everyone else on friday.

@@ElectricVehicleMan looking forward to your candid opinion!

Not the phev. The 2.0tdi my dad has does better mpg when the battery is full. Make sure to get the 6 speed manual though. Also, great 2nd hand car to get. Depreciates faster then a passat but it's the same car.

Why not a full EV?

@@ElectricVehicleMan I think charging anxiety is the issue for me. Where I live in South Yorkshire. There isn't a lot of charging stations if I need to top up.

Underated comment

Saves me typing it: www.quora.com/Why-are-new-steering-wheels-flat-bottomed

Fifty shades of black, they were slightly grey!

I can provide you with first hand figures which proves that the research you read is cobblers. For starters the price is no where near the same as full EV and if used properly fuel bills fall sharply. Who provided the research BP, Esso?

@@stepheng8779 unfortunately I couldn't find the research study again, as there is a lot of information in internet nowadays. But it probably was based on Belgium or Netherlands and company cars. Also this article might give some clue to the "used properly" www.electrive.com/2020/09/28/phev-real-world-consumption-2-4-times-higher-than-approved/ But in fact the PHEV costs quite expensive, e.g., the Ford Tourneo PHEV costs ~45k vs 30k diesel, ~same size van - Peugeot e-expert EV costs ~45k; diesel -30k. Kia Niro - Hybrid -28k; PHEV-38k; EV-39k. You have to use it a lot and very properly to make it worth it. Also PHEV has all the maintenance costs of ICE, extra weight due to battery / ICE engine etc. I was looking for a while for PHEV's for family needs, but realised that the costs for PHEV the same as EV. In my opinion PHEV are made just to comply the regulasion standarts, less TAXes etc. In practive they does not give a lot of advantages over a lot cheaper ICE.

@@electricwhirl5175 don't know where you're getting your prices from but they're wrong. £30k full price for a Niro plug-in but you'll never pay that. I picked mine up just over 2 years ago for around £24k with 2000 sales rep miles on the clock. Get 35 pure electric miles, the vast majority of its daily use, charge it at home in a couple of hours, solar roof panels, cost virtually nothing. Got the back up of a petrol engine for a longer journey cos where I live the public charging infrastructure is crap. As for maintenance, there is none, it's a Kia it never goes wrong, if it does my 7 year warranty will cover it. Use it properly, use the batteries to their FULL capacity, always arrive home empty, I've seen some of those reviews and testers they don't have a clue what they're talking about.

@@stepheng8779 I can't comment on UK prices, I live in Belgium, I'm telling you the list prices from webpage. I was at the dealership at the Kia Niro - for the Hybrid they could give -10% from the price, for the Niro EV - 0%. They have so high demand, so they said that the waiting time anyway will be more than year. And the 2000 miles on clock - so the car is not new, but a used one :P also the PHEV has to make maintenance, even KIA, every 2 years or some mileage - with oil, engine filter etc. changes, which cost a lot more than for EV.

@@electricwhirl5175 The KIA CEED Phev in my region is only 25K Euro while a model-3 is 50K Euro and service cost is only 100 Euro more than the BEV. Do calculations on your own driving habits.

It’s a petrol engine, so not great for long journeys.

My Outlander Phev does my 12 mile commute all electric infact ive used 300 litres of petrol for 9000 miled in 1st year

How far out of your price range is it or are you just assuming that? Work out what you stand to save in fuel (don't forget to add the electricity back in but it's not much), tax, wear and tear items and then have a look at pcp's which is basically deferring a chunk of the cars value until the end of the term. That way you can either hand the car back or take out a loan to finish paying it but it keeps payments really low. On Skoda's website it comes in at £537/month but thats before savings on fuel and tax. Depending on your driving pattern and mileage that could be a large chunk of that payment. Even better get one at a few months old, save a few thousand on list price and cut your payments by a nice amount. There are some Passat GTE's (the older models with the smaller battery) for sub £15k but you will need to keep them under about 20 miles to stay in ev only mode.

@@ElectricVehicleMan I have a petrol as it is so that is fine, just odd they don't do it as a diesel.

@@siraff4461 I'm not in the UK and it'd need to be 40% off to be within what I can afford cause taxes and power cost is just mental here. Also cars are still a fairly cheap item so taking a loan to buy it seems silly to me, a cheaper car that might cost a little more to run is for me a better choice than paying on a loan. Maybe when its used if it, that's the market I'm looking at anyways for the next car. Just not getting much on google about how well those PHEVs are for the used market. Not many out there and there for not much data it seems.

you can't lose that as while the engine revs it aqlso produces the electricity, which is neing used by electro motor and adds into the perormance bit. There is a video on YT comparing the acceleration of this and 2.0 petrol - difference in milisecond...

Why would you use an engine to charge a battery so you could then use that charge to not use the engine!

He clearly listened.

@@ElectricVehicleMan 🤣😂

You’ve just said it yourself. You keep wipes in the car and use them every couple of days! You don’t see that as something that’s so easily solved? 🤔 Get some black gloss kitchen worktops in your house and see how easy they are to live with.

Is that 80 mpg plus electricity

@@whocares264 Yes I did not include the 8.9 kWh charge at the start of the trip at 7.9p per kW. Obviously not as cheap an ev but that is my next move.

@@keithware5314 thanks for the reply...have a good new year ...fingers crossed

@@whocares264 Thanks very much, let's hope 2021 is much better. Enjoy your driving when they let you.

On the other hand, by way of a balanced view....it will be just as economical as an EV for the vast majority of daily journeys that the majoriy of people do ( average daily use less than 25 miles). For long journeys....no worries about looking for a charging station, no anxiety about whether the charger will actually be working or not or whether it will be occupied, no having to wait for goodness knows how long until your turn comes to use the charger, no smartphone required, no multiple apps to download and faff with to (hopefully) get the charger functioning, no waiting 40 minutes whilst your car charges to only 80% of its range, no multiple prepayments taken from your credit/debit card due to abysmal charger design/operation (then having to wait over a week to get it refunded), no safety anxiety... having to use chargers in remote unlit locations, sitting alone in a car tethered by a cable (no escape if accosted), no getting soaked in the rain, hail or snow whilst faffing with charger (the vast majority of chargers have no cover or lighting and are unmanned. A very daunting concern for lone females), no range of charger anxiety whatsoever! Want to do a long, relaxed, uneventfull zero anxiety with your family? No problem...load-up, fill-up and off you go. No preplanning to do for charger locations, no plan b or plan c to plan for the likely event of "charger" issues. Low on fuel?...simply stop at a petrol station...under cover out of the elements, manned, less than 5 mins to refuel,grab a coffee and yer on your way. No fuss, no bother. Arrive at your destination unstressed. Like camping or caravanning? Simply hook up and away you go. Few EV's can tow, and if you have one that can, be prepared for even more hassle. Eg. Finding somewhere safe to park your trailer/caravan then unhooking it before being able to charge....then tediously rehooking it up again ( more wasted time lost from your journey). Oh, your EV range will take a severe hammering whilst towing too. The "extra weight"you are dragging around with the additional batteries is probably on a par with, or even less than the weight of a higher tange EV. The only downside I can see is the cost of a long journey. Yes, it will (at the moment) usually be less in an EV, however the cost of charging is beginning to escalate and will soon be at a rate that puts the cost per mile at a parity with petrol powered cars (it almost is now if Ionity chargers are used). The additional cost of fuel on a long journey is well worth it for the elimination of the stress and anxiety endured with an EV. Then there is the financial penalty of the purchase price of an EV to consider, currently £40k+ if you want one with a reasonable range (c250-280 miles) even more if you want one approaching (sort of) an ICE vehicle range. You can buy a considerable amount of fossil fuel for the price difference. The Skoda superb hybrid is an extremely competent, versatile car worthy of its name and well worthy of consideration. Hence the reason it has won top awards year-on-year. Oh.... for reasons of transparancy, I declare that I am an EV owner. My ownership experiences are detailed above.

Well, yes! (maybe..) - but if you don't.... The whole POINT of different cars is that they suit different situations....!!

If your commute is under 30 miles and you charge every day, it's basically a huge BEV for cheap.

@@HaydenLau. Two unlikely conditions, you proved my point. Most car buyers will not go through the hassle to install a new plug or an EV-SE to charge they new PHEV at home in their garage and it takes too long to charge elsewhere and they cannot charge it at work and they can drive just by filling it up. Yes, a few people will do it but my point is people in general don't do it.

@@casperhansen826 Why is it an unlikely condition? It suits me perfectly at least, and many others that I know of. Maybe you don't live in a city, but 7 million people do in mine. For us, our commutes are probably under twenty miles round trip. And for this PHEV at least, you can charge with a three-pin plug (UK) in five hours or so. You wouldn't need to install specialist gear.

@@HaydenLau. most people buy them because they have some incentives, they don't care about the charging, especially the company cars are mostly like that.

@@casperhansen826 My family and I are buying one of these with our own money because it suits us very well. Going to city center or the supermarket and back is a 20 mile round trip so we would normally never have to use petrol, and we have the option to go on long journeys with the petrol engine in terms of range and also in terms of charging/filling up time. Of course these journeys will be less economical but we don't go on these very often. The longest range EV is the £100,000 Mercedes EQS and it only does 485 miles while the Superb does 600 miles on a full tank.

i love cars but no car has a personality

Kind of. It's bigger than the A6 though... And bigger in the back than the A8 unless you spec the extended wheelbase version. I got ours (petrol version) in 2016. It made a lot of sense then. Now I'd probably stretch to an e-Niro - or wait for the Enyaq. With the change in company car tax, we've gone for a Model 3 and it's much cheaper (monthly costs including petrol)! You can only buy cars that are on sale at the time you need them... It's been a brilliant car for transporting 2 6ft teenagers and their clobber. Space is a more important luxury than toys or a premium badge with that set of requirements. Driven gently on short journeys (which is most of them, hence not the diesel and avoiding the diesel gate criminality) I've averaged over 40mpg long term. On a long journey, with the cruise control set to 70, I get over 50mpg. To get good value, you need to choose the version carefully, otherwise you can spend a lot.

And maybe some won’t.

Built better, more space, more practical, no long range hassle, real dealer back up and isn't wasting a load of batteries which could be used in someone elses commute. There are a load of other reasons this is a far superior car overall but Tesla has a Tesla badge and can accelerate fast which are the two most important things for a practical family car. Apparently.

if you want reliability economy refinement and pace go with the tesla

@@whocares264 Half of that is even true.

@@siraff4461 which half is untrue

Yes the honda is inefficient....

model Y

@@whocares264 and new Model 3

@@edwyncorteen1527 ah you have seen bjorn 's latest video as well...he is the best

The Chicken emblem won UK best cars of 2020 prices and still not liked here 😉

I think it’s in the “my friends will actually be impressed with this” category. I have a 2017 Superb Sportline diesel. It is better than the 2005 Audi A6 it replaced, has not been to the dealer apart from routine service and first MOT, averages 53 mpg and regularly achieves 60mpg due to the M27 roadworks. At 53000 miles it has no rattles unlike my wife’s 2018 Audi TTS which has a dashboard rattle at 20000 miles. The Skoda brought 5 of us with luggage from Fort William to the south coast in under 11 hours, with 120 miles of fuel left whilst on a holiday. It is truly a “SUPERB” family car.

Not day to day driving you can't. - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-e8QToP7oMro.html

Enough.

No. I bought that to save money, not to enjoy driving.

@@ElectricVehicleMan would that not apply to the Superb, it was never going to be a drivers car.

@@isoconfused8744 Yes. Which is why I said it won’t matter if you view a car as a tool.

I agree with the fuel consumption figures you quote. I have a plug in prius and average 135mpg but i use maybe 50% electric so the true figure is round 75 mpg. This is fantastic fuel consumption and nearly on par with ev running costs. Prius phv is expensive to buy as all evs and phvs are. The charging infrastructure in uk is improving all the time and may look at a full ev next tlme

@@simonstokes1574 i did measure my consump. My claim about 140 under 5l i pure ICE running. No ev. Overall. I have this car for 3 years. 60.000km..overall consumption for whole 60k is 2,2liters. I think this is great. It is expensive but is comfy car. There is NO ice car, at this price, with 120hp, automatic gearbox...that has lower running costs then this one. Lower maintaince cost of service...tyres...comsumption.

Electric cars /plugins are not for you. But you only one person that I know of that drives over 300 miles a day

@@xperyskop2475 300 miles in a day is not unusual for a company car driver but the point I was making is that the government is giving tax breaks for company car drivers like me for whom PHEVs are not suitable compared with an ICE

Another government hair-brained scheme that makes no sense at all, but I guess taxi drivers will be thrilled when these lease phevs come into the market!

I think the bigger problem is they hand out company cars to people so they can pop to meetings or the office and back rather than working from home. Quite a lot of people commute over 50 miles each way and some over 100 miles each way. To sit in an office which is less well equipped than their living room. If you think a government scheme trying to get cleaner cars on the road (though that may not be the net result through poor planning) is bad then you really should look at why someone isn't getting the benefit from that plug-in system. Too many miles or no incentive to plug in aren't the governments fault but if they are not addressed sooner or later legislation will come in to make it happen so things like unnecessary journeys will be taxed or at work charging will be mandatory or other such things. I don't know what your personal situation is but if its not important journeys knocking on the door of 400 miles a day is taking the mick whatever you're driving.

I would class the Model 3 as being in the Premium car sector.

@@ElectricVehicleMan - for speed yes, not for anything else.

So what determines a premium car?

@@ElectricVehicleMan - Quality, Quality, Quality. It's a well known fact that when buying an EV you're paying for tech , they then use scratchy plastics to balance the books. The Tesla charging network has to be paid for somehow. I'm an EV fan, just looking forward to the day when you can get one with quality materials, built to a high standard at a reasonable price.

@@no-oneman.4140 Sure seem to be a ton of rich people driving Teslas who are perfectly happy with their quality level. But then, as a person whos mostly driven budget cars from the 90s, anything with a touch screen and automatic anything looks like a fancy spaceship to me.

Which is then in place for when someone goes full EV, it’s safer than a plug socket and charges a third faster.