2026 Skoda Elroq review

Our Verdict

The Elroq is for the buyer who wants a European EV without a European price, and who cares more about how a car feels over 50,000km than how it looks in the driveway. It nails the fundamentals: build quality, packaging, steering, refinement. Its biggest problem is the wave of Chinese rivals that will sell you more equipment, more range and more airbags for the same money or less.

What does the Elroq cost in Australia?

Skoda has been aggressive here. The entry Elroq 60 Select lands at $49,990 driveaway, which makes it the most affordable European-built EV on sale in this country by a decent margin.

View Elroq driveaway pricing and specifications →

Worth knowing before you sign anything: Skoda has confirmed MY27 pricing and specification with roughly $1,000 added to Select variants. The extra spend buys real content including one-pedal driving, a camera-based driver monitoring system, traffic sign recognition, Travel Assist 3.0, a new Android-based infotainment platform and a 21-litre frunk. Most importantly, the Select 60 also swaps its 63kWh NMC pack for a 61kWh LFP unit.

What does the Elroq look like?

Skoda's 'modern solid' design language debuts here and the restraint is the point. There are no flush door handles, no full-width light bar, no illuminated badge, just a clean box with a blanked-off nose and a strong shoulder line.

At 4488mm long it sits right in the middle of the mid-size SUV class, though the short overhangs make it look tidier than the tape measure suggests. 19-inch alloys fill the arches properly on the Select grades.

What is the Elroq like inside?

Sit in an Elroq after a week in almost any Chinese EV and the first thing you notice is that nothing creaks. The dash top is wrapped in fabric, the door cards are soft where your elbow lands and the switchgear moves with the sort of damped precision that costs money to engineer.

The Recytitan cloth trim is made largely from recycled bottles and offcuts, and it looks better than that description implies. It is hard-wearing rather than luxurious, which suits the car.

Layout is refreshingly conventional. There's a proper shifter on the centre console, a physical start button, real mirror controls and shortcut keys under the screen, so nobody needs a tutorial before their first drive.

The 13-inch touchscreen is a Skoda-developed system rather than a Volkswagen re-skin, and it shows. Climate controls live on-screen, but a physical shortcut key drops you straight into them and the response is quick enough that you don't resent it.

The 5.0-inch driver's display is the weak link. It's smaller than your phone and shows only the essentials, which is fine in isolation but feels thin next to rivals fitting 10-inch panels at this price. A head-up display would fix it and you can't have one on the Select.

Two more irritations. Right-hand-drive cars get a half-sized glovebox because the fuse box eats the rest, and the Select's front seats are manually adjusted, which is the kind of saving buyers notice on day one.

How practical is the Elroq?

The Elroq shares its 2765mm wheelbase with the larger Enyaq, and you really notice the extra space in the back. Rear legroom is generous for a car this size, headroom is excellent and the flat floor makes the middle seat usable rather than theoretical.

Foot space under the front seats is tight, which taller teenagers will mention. Everyone else will be comfortable.

The 470-litre boot is a strong number for the class, expanding to 1580 litres with the rear bench folded. There's a net under the parcel shelf for charging cables and cubbies in the boot walls, so the cargo area doesn't turn into a rolling junk drawer.

Then there's the Simply Clever stuff, which Skoda has been doing for two decades and still does better than anyone. An umbrella in the driver's door, a removable storage box for the rear floor, split map pockets, lined door bins, an armrest with a drawer. None of it is showy. All of it gets used.

What is the Elroq like to drive?

The first thing you notice on the road is how polished the Elroq feels. The steering is direct and consistently weighted, the throttle is calibrated for smoothness rather than theatrics, and the whole thing tracks straight without constant correction.

150kW and 310Nm through the rear wheels is enough. 0-100km/h in 8.0 seconds won't frighten anyone, but the delivery is clean and there's plenty in reserve for a merge.

The 85 Select is a different animal with 210kW and 545Nm cutting the sprint to 6.6 seconds. It feels genuinely brisk with a full load on board, though the extra shove arrives with an additional 100kg or so of battery and none of it addresses the ride.

Unless you tow regularly or routinely carry five adults, the 60 Select's outputs suit the way this car actually gets driven, and the $10,000 saved buys a lot of charging.

That rear-drive layout matters more than the numbers. The Elroq turns into a corner without the nose washing wide, and the 9.3-metre turning circle makes it absurdly easy in a shopping centre car park.

Refinement is a genuine strength. Wind and road noise are well suppressed at highway speed and the motor is close to inaudible, which makes long trips less tiring than the price would suggest.

The brake pedal takes acclimatising. There's very little happening in the first third of travel, so you learn to press further than instinct tells you, and it becomes second nature within a day.

The ride is the real problem. On smooth roads the firmness reads as sporting composure, but on the patched, ridged suburban roads most of us actually drive, the Elroq thumps and fidgets in a way that never quite settles.

Body control is excellent. It's simply harsher than it needs to be, and if you're cross-shopping something like a Sealion 7 you'll feel the difference on the same stretch of road.

How efficient is the Elroq?

Skoda claims 395km of WLTP range for the 60 Select. That’s optimistic.

In mixed real-world driving, plan for the low-to-mid 300s. That's enough for a week of commuting and school runs on a single home charge, but it makes the Elroq a car you'll charge with intent before a long weekend rather than one you point at a long freeway without thinking.

Charging is a highlight. The 60 Select accepts up to 165kW DC, which is quick for a battery this size and puts a 10 to 80% top-up inside roughly half an hour. On 11kW AC at home you're looking at about six hours from empty, or closer to nine on a typical 7kW single-phase wallbox.

The 85 Select trades that away. Its 82kWh pack claims 529km and returns very strong real-world consumption, but it peaks at 135kW on DC, so the cheaper car is the faster one to refill.

Running costs are another strong point. Service intervals are a relaxed 24 months or 30,000km, and the prepaid packs are cheap enough to be a genuine ownership argument.

$1,950 for a decade of maintenance works out at under $200 a year and the seven-year warranty matches the best in the mainstream market.

Is the Elroq safe?

The Elroq has not been tested by ANCAP. It carries a five-star Euro NCAP rating from 2025, scoring 90% for adult occupant protection, 87% for child occupant protection, 77% for vulnerable road users and 78% for safety assist. Those results do not transfer to an Australian rating, so treat them as indicative rather than official.

The standard active safety list is solid: AEB with pedestrian, cyclist and motorcyclist detection, adaptive cruise with traffic jam assist, lane-keep assist, blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert, turn assist and speed sign recognition.

More importantly, the calibration is sane. The Elroq doesn't chime, tug or lecture every few minutes, which is a low bar that a startling number of new cars fail to clear.

Two caveats, and they're significant. Rear side airbags are optional which at this price is difficult to defend, and so is the 360-degree camera. Euro NCAP also marked the driver monitoring system harshly, scoring it 0.3 out of a possible two points, though the MY27 update adds a camera-based system that should address it.

What are the main competitors to the Elroq?

The BYD Sealion 7 is the obvious cross-shop and the one that will test your resolve. It's faster, better equipped and more comfortable over broken surfaces, and the interior looks far more expensive than it is. The Skoda counters with better steering, better packaging and a cabin that will still feel screwed together in five years.

The Kia EV5 brings more boot space, a longer standard equipment list and an ANCAP rating the Skoda doesn't have. It's the safer family choice on paper, but it costs more and its driving manners are softer and less satisfying.

The Geely EX5 sits around $4,000 below the Elroq and for that it gives you a softer ride, more standard kit and a five-star ANCAP rating. The Skoda keeps the bigger boot, faster 165kW charging and the better chassis. Closer than the badges suggest.

The Tesla Model Y remains the segment's default answer with a supercharging network no rival can match and considerably more range. It's also a very different proposition philosophically, and buyers who value an umbrella in the door rarely end up in one.

The Volkswagen ID.4 is the same car underneath, but it's the better configured of the two. The ride is more settled, which happens to be exactly where the Elroq falls down. It asks more money and gives up boot space, so the decision comes down to whether comfort or value carries more weight for you.

Should I buy the Elroq?

If you value how a car drives, how it's built and what it costs to keep, the Elroq is an easy recommendation and the 60 Select is the pick of the range. It gets the fundamentals right and it does them for $49,990 driveaway with seven years of warranty behind it.

If your priority list starts with range, equipment and airbag count, be honest with yourself and buy something else. Several Chinese rivals simply give you more equipment and more range for less money.

Our advice is simple. Drive it over the worst road near your house before you decide, because the ride is the one flaw that could turn a very good car into a daily irritation. If the firmness doesn't bother you, everything else about the Elroq will quietly keep impressing you for years.