In June 2021, former Skoda CEO Thomas Schäfer announced three electric vehicles would follow the Enyaq before the end of the decade and all of them would be smaller and cheaper. The next production version of the Vision 7S crossover concept will be one of them, as will the entry-level EV that was released in early May this year. Okay, but what about the third one? Well, it looks like the best-selling Octavia will rock the electric road after 2025.
english magazine Autocar Having good authority, peeps from Mladá Boleslav have started development work on an all-electric version of the popular compact-to-midsize car. Interestingly, the zero-emission Octavia will bypass the Volkswagen Group MEB platform used by Enyaq and adopt the upcoming SSP. It’s said to use a more technologically advanced battery compared to the Vision 7S concept’s 89-kWh package, which Skoda says is good for 600 kilometers (373 miles) and a maximum charging power of 200 kilowatts.
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The regular Octavia EV is expected to have dual electric motors mounted at the front – one for each wheel – while the hotter RS derivative will add two at the rear, thus enabling an all-wheel-drive layout. This is not the first Octavia RS with AWD as diesel versions of the ICE-powered models have been optionally offered with an all-paw system for years. The performance variant is unlikely to be offered from day one as logic tells us that Skoda will introduce the Rally Sport at least one year after the standard car.
Octavia EV won’t end TSI and TDI models since Autocar believe Skoda plans to keep the conventionally powered model in the lineup. However it will be forced to drop combustion engines by 2035 when a sales ban will go into effect in the European Union on all new cars that produce emissions. Meanwhile, the current fourth-generation model (fifth if you count the original 1959-1971 models) will get a mid-cycle facelift in 2024.
Skoda has shocked the Octavia in part by introducing a plug-in hybrid powertrain that is offered in two power stages, with the more powerful one reserved for the RS pictured here. Apart from that, the larger Superb flagship also has a PHEV setup and will continue to come with a charging port for the next generation which will arrive sometime next year.
