Skoda Enyaq iV, VW ID.4 Pro and ID.4 GTX Tease Taste : Power to the People

Love Handle SG, Singapore – The location along Ann Siang Hill is a taste of things to come, because the staging point for our Skoda and VW EV experience is Love Handle Singapore, a dining establishment that prides itself on its carefully curated plant-based creations.

The restaurant’s theme of sustainability and empathy is aligned with VW / Skoda Singapore’s push into electrification with the Tiguan-sized crossovers, the Enyaq iV, ID.4 Pro and ID.4 GTX.

Needless to say, just like going electric, embracing a plant-based diet is a huge paradigm shift for many of us.

However, the mock meat spread at lunch eases us slowly into the vegan diet, just like the Skoda Enyaq iV, VW ID.4 and ID.4 GTX convincingly bridge the gap between ICE and full-electric without too big of a shock to one’s system.

I’ve arranged to be paired with Kimberly again, our edgy content creator colleague from sister title, CarBuyer Singapore – you might remember her as our partner during the VW / Skoda B-road escapade in the Cat A models.

(Click HERE to read about our B-road escapade in the Category A VW and Skoda models from Singapore to Desaru)

I thought it’d make cool VW/Skoda bookends for me (and her!) given the B-road drive a month-plus ago was our first-ever video with Kim, while this EV preview would be her last before she moves on to work for a big car brand.

She’s certainly an edgy poster-child for her generation – lit-as-heck, racing fast in life’s express lane and certainly too cool for this old-school chap.

Well-familiar with my predilection for all things ICE, Kim manages to coax this old’codger into taking up the VW / Skoda EV preview drive, a tease taste if you will.

Now, us grumpy old folks like to gripe and moan about the young’uns, but could there be more to bridging the generation gap than meets the eye?

In many ways it is like the contentious ICE versus EV debate. I grew up with the best of ICE cars and didn’t have to think twice about taking the long and winding road to Desaru, even if we would be driving <130hp Cat A cars, because the driving pleasure would be in the route itself… and driving slow cars fast!

On the other hand, Kim would have been much happier taking the short and quick route (when you’re young, everything is about fast-faster-fastest), but along the way, she came to appreciate that the fun was in the journey as much as it was about reaching the destination.

By that same token, I would come to develop a healthy appreciation for Taylor Swift tunes on the drive, since this was all Kim played on loop for the entire 460+km from Singapore to Desaru!

However, believe it or not, this newfound love for Taylor’s tunes would give me a chance to bond with my kiddo over a common music matter, which made for more pleasant car-rides since we no longer had to squabble over the selection of songs, where it was often Iron Maiden versus the Ice Maiden (Elsa) or Rush versus Taylor Swift.

It’s all about expanding one's empathy, opening your mind, bridging the generation gap and co-existing together, which is how die-hard ICE enthusiasts should treat the EV movement (and vice versa, we might add). It isn’t Us versus Them, but having the right horses for courses.

For instance, the EVs are perfect for commuting around in Singapore, which is essentially a giant city.

True to EV form, there’s that familiar immediate punch from standstill, which is a big help (and big rush!) during overtaking manoeuvres or slotting oneself into gaps in peak hour traffic.

Both the ID.4 and Enyaq iV crossovers are built on the Group’s MEB platform and are electrified from ground-up.

This means everything is seamlessly integrated, without the retro-fit feel of EVs built on existing ICE platforms.

While they’re indisputably all-electric, the user interface in the Enyaq iV and ID.4 is familiar territory to those used to VW’s and Skoda’s operating system, so there shouldn’t be any culture shock in the transition from ICE to EV model.

Likewise, it’s pretty much get-in-and-drive for these EVs, chiefly because they do not feature the aggressive regenerative braking that was a characteristic of earlier EVs, which some drivers still struggle to acclimatise to.

The lofty driving position of the crossovers also gives the occupants great visibility out, which adds to the airy ambience of the cars.

We tried both the dual- and single-motor models and the latter works well for our use-case.

After all, I don’t need my commuter to pretend to be a sportscar, so as far as we’re concerned, there’s really such a thing as too much power.

Personally, we’re happiest with the longer range offered by the slightly less punchy single-motor variant of the Enyaq iV (204hp / 350Nm / 532km) versus the dual-motor’s ID.4 GTX’s 299hp / 460Nm / 472km.

The ease of the driving and the user experience makes VW / Skoda’s EV range accessible to more people, especially the ones who view such new-fangled powertrains with scepticism.

Ultimately, such accessibility is as good a way as any for ICE enthusiasts to make that transition from ICE to EVs, or at the very least, accept an EV into their garages to serve household commuting duties.

In my case, it'll be an even more drastic act of ‘going-green’ if I transitioned from eating plant-eaters to becoming a plant-eater!

PHOTOS VW Singapore / Skoda Singapore