The impending new electric little brother to Enyaq has plenty of choice for New Zealand distributor.

THREE front-drive editions, all with different battery sizes, and a fizzed up dual-motor to follow represent with Skoda’s new compact electric already confirmed for New Zealand introduction next year.

The Czech arm of the Volkswagen Group has now fully unveiled Elroq, which though a more compact car than the Enyaq already here is also almost as large inside and utilises the same MEB electric car platform.

Styling similarity? It’s not a complete doppelgänger, though that’s just at the moment - Enyaq is also due a big facelift, coming here in the latter part of 2025, which seems to be when Elroq could well show.

For all that they have their own individual design elements now, it’s surely fair to suggest   that the Elroq is any less likely than the Enyaq to be mistaken for anything other than a Skoda, even though it lacks the latter’s big grille.

The family kicks in with a Elroq 50 which means a 52kWh battery, a 126kW electric motor and a range of 375km; it’s the only version currently in production. 

Standard equipment includes a 13-inch touchscreen, a reversing camera, dual-zone climate control, heated front seats and steering wheel, built in navigation, wireless phone charging, adaptive cruise control, a rear-view camera and all-round parking sensors.

The Elroq 60 - which arrives later in 2025 - gets a 59kWh battery and a 152kW electric motor, and a much more useable range of 440km..

Beyond that there’s a Elroq 85, with a 212kW electric motor and a range of up to 580km, also set to be delivered in Sportline. The car will also be the basis for the 85x model with two electric motors and four-wheel drive.

The interior materials are mainly recycled, including discarded fishing nets reworked into soft fabric) and the on-screen software marks another gradual improvement of the MEB-based model lineup’s tech development, with customisable shortcut bars at the top and bottom of the screen. It also has some physical controls, with a lineup of real buttons below the display to engage driving modes, climate control and driver assistance setup.

The driver’s main instruments are the same as those found in the Enyaq.

Technology reach includes an augmented reality head-up display and a MySkoda app that, in European market application, performs all the usual tricks such as locking and unlocking the car, setting charging times, controlling the interior heating and cooling. An owners home charging point to be controlled via the app. Elroq models fitted with the full adaptive parking aid, can deliver remote parking.

Initial overseas’ media feedback is that that the car does well for space and comfort levels. the rear has been commended for having copious legroom - even if there’s a tall driver sat in the front - and plenty of headroom. 

The boot seems a good size too, although at 470 litres it’s some 50 litres down on the ICE equivalent Karoq. Fold down the back seats and there’s 1580 litres of load space, although the rear seat back doesn’t quite go fully flat.

A storage pack includes a net strung underneath the parcel shelf strong enough (it has a 6kg load limit) to hold the Elroq’s Type 2 charging cable. Commentators say this partially makes up for the lack of a ‘frunk’ in the nose. The parcel shelf itself is adjustable to two levels, but there’s nowhere to stash it when you’re not using it.

Elroq comes with seven airbags as standard - for the driver and front passenger, head airbags, front side airbags and a central airbag between the front seats; and that can be extended to nine, as rear side airbags are available as an option.

There’s plenty of electronic safety kit too. In Europe a good deal of that is optional rather than standard. In that environment Elroq constantly draws on ‘swarm’ data from other cars via its connected services setup, which can provide live warnings of any potential dangers on the road ahead, and that information can be sent directly to the standard adaptive cruise control system, automatically slowing as a driver approaches any point of possible trouble.

Elroq also has a standard ‘Crew Protection’ system, as part of the anti-collision warning setup, which tightens the seatbelts and winds up the windows if it has worked out that a crash is unavoidable.

Early feedback has questioned if standard-fit 20-inch alloy wheels are the best idea, with comment about the car becoming fidgety on anything less than pristine tarmac, though there’s also agreement it’s not a hard-riding car. Yet nonetheless quite unlike the Enyaq.