Suffice it to say that we rather like the latest Skoda Octavia. “This rightly-popular car has taken a step forward in interior quality and practicality as well as being one of the best-driving and comfortable Octavias ever,” opined Andrew English when he first drove a diesel estate version in a pandemic-heavy June 2020. I wrote: “The Octavia leads the class: in comfort, quality and practicality” after testing the petrol hatchback later that year.
However, the one Octavia we haven’t yet driven is the plug-in hybrid (PHEV), or ‘iV’ in Skoda parlance. This is important, both because of the tax benefits afforded to PHEVs as company cars and because the Octavia’s blend of value and space make it inherently attractive both to fleet managers and to company car user-choosers. The Octavia iV, then, should be the ideal company car. Is that the case?
Pros
- Roomy
- Comfy
- Good value
Cons
- Not quite as roomy as the petrol car
- Not quite as comfy as the petrol car
- Not quite as good value as the petrol car
Great estate
It hasn’t been all that hard to turn the Octavia into a plug-in hybrid. Skoda simply nabbed the same 1.4-litre petrol engine and 13kWh battery pack combination we’ve already seen in several other Volkswagen Group plug-ins.
This powertrain now offers a variety of outputs, two of which are available in the Octavia; a 201bhp version in the SE L, and a hotter 242bhp set-up in the vRS model.
It’s the former we’re testing, clothed in an estate body – surely, the one in which the Octavia makes the most sense, given its distinctly practical bent. Mind you, this isn’t some joyless utilitarian dog hauler; the SE L has sensibly sized 17-inch wheels, suede upholstery, heated front seats, adaptive cruise control and keyless entry and start, all as standard.
You’ll pay £36,195 for such finery in estate form, or £35,115 for the hatchback, which compares well with VW Group stablemates the Volkswagen Golf (£35,620 as an equivalent hatchback, and not available as an estate) and Seat Leon (£37,165 in similarly-equipped estate form). But it’s pricier than the Vauxhall Astra Estate (£34,200) and Peugeot 308 SW (£35,770) when you spec them as PHEVs.
