- Škoda’s first electric seven-seater is also its largest and most spacious SUV yet.
- The Peaq offers up to 91 kWh, up to 398 km of WLTP range, and 10-80% charging in 27-28 minutes.
- It starts below €50,000 in many markets, but remains forbidden fruit for U.S. buyers.
Skoda has just revealed its flagship offering, the Peaq (pronounced ‘peak’), a fully electric three-row SUV with the brand’s usual blend of qualities. Its vehicles are typically very keenly priced for what they offer and often undercut the equivalent Volkswagen model they are related to.
The Peaq doesn’t have a VW equivalent, but it will start under €50,000 ($56,700), which undercuts rivals such as the Kia EV9. It is slightly shorter than the Kia, but Skoda promises it prioritizes interior room, and the Peaq has a huge interior for its footprint. The base five-seater version has a cavernous 33 cubic feet (935 liters) trunk, and even the three-row seven-seater variant still has a more-than-respectable 10.5 cubic feet (299 liters).
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Source: Skoda
Folding the third row frees up 31.4 cu-ft (890 l), and all versions have a 1.3 cu-ft (37 l) frunk and 1.1 cu-ft (31 l) of combined cabin storage. That is a lot of cargo room for a vehicle that still boasts three very spacious rows of seats on a 116.7-inch (2,965 mm) wheelbase and a total length just shy of 192 inches (4,874 mm).
The design is slightly toned down from the 7S concept and features Skoda’s new family face (known as the Tech-Deck Face) and design language. This is also the first Skoda ever with flush door handles, doing their part to get the Peaq to achieve its excellent 0.249 drag coefficient.
Inside, it is as restrained as you expect a modern Skoda to be, but it debuts the brand’s new 13.6-inch vertical infotainment screen running an Android-based operating system. Optionally available is an expansive 22.8-square-foot (2.12-square-meter) electrochromic roof, split into nine sections that can each turn opaque.
The optional Comfort Package is well worth having because it turns riding in the Peaq into a very premium experience. It adds electric, heated, and cooled seats with AGR ergonomic certification and a massage function, electric leg rests, headrest cushions, a folding table for the second row, and an upgraded Sonos sound system.
The Skoda Peaq is the largest SUV built on the Volkswagen MEB platform, and it comes with two battery pack sizes. The base rear-wheel drive Peaq 60 has a 63-kilowatt-hour battery with a net capacity of 59 kWh, giving this version an expected WLTP range of 280 miles (450 km). The Peaq 90 gets a larger 91 kWh pack (86 kWh usable), boosting range to 398 miles (640 km).
The dual-motor Peaq 90x has a lower range of 379 miles (610 km) and only a modest power increase from 281 hp to 295 hp. This cuts the acceleration time from 0 to 62 mph (100 km/h) by 0.4 seconds, from 7.1 seconds to 6.7 seconds. All Peaq variants support bidirectional charging with V2L, V2H, and V2G functionality, though for the latter two, Skoda says you need a special wallbox.
Since the MEB platform runs at 400 volts, the Peaq isn’t the quickest-charging new EV. The base 60 model peaks at 160 kilowatts, while the large-battery variants hit 199 kW; they charge from 10-80% in 27 minutes and 28 minutes, respectively.
Skoda is Europe’s second-highest-selling brand, and its two existing electric crossovers, the Elroq and Kodiaq, are already very popular. Aside from adding the larger Peaq at the top of the range, Skoda is also introducing the Epiq as its entry-level electric crossover offering. Unlike other VW Group brands, whose electric offerings come in a variety of body styles, all of Skoda’s EVs are high-riding crossovers.