2022 Skoda Superb Sportline iV Wagon | Hybrid Car Review

The Skoda Superb has a great reputation, and that was only enhanced by the Police taking them as a model of choice. We at DriveLife also love the Superb; it’s a fantastic car; refined, extremely spacious, and drives brilliantly.

We last reviewed the Superb Scout in 2020, that review only reinforced my opinion of the Superb, and I didn’t want to return that car.

This year, we went to the launch of the Superb iV, a plug-in hybrid with around 60Km range in EV mode. Surely this will be even better than the Scout model we last tested?

What We Like and Dislike About The 2022 Skoda Superb Sportline iV Wagon

What we like	What we don’t like
Generally very refined So spacious – everywhere Design Build quality Ride quality Seat comfort Adaptive headlamp performance Overall comfort levels One of the few plug-in station wagons available	Road and tyre noise No DC charging Dark interior

What’s In The 2022 Skoda Superb iV Range?

There are two trim levels and two body types for the 2022 Skoda Superb iV:

• Style Sedan $71,990
• Sportline Sedan $76,990
• Style Wagon $74,990
• Sportline Wagon $79,990

All Superb iVs have a hybrid powertrain with a petrol-turbo, 1.4-litre, 4-cylinder engine that’s mated to an 85kW electric motor. Connected to the electric motor is a 6-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission (DSG).

The combined power output is 160kW, while the combined torque is 400Nm. All models are front-wheel drive.

2022 Skoda Superb iV Standard Equipment Highlights

Safety & Assistance 

• Front Driver & Passenger, Driver knee, front & rear side and curtain airbags
• ‘CREW PROTECT ASSIST’ Proactive protection for driver & front passenger
• ‘FRONT ASSIST’ – Radar scanning in front of car, city autonomous braking
• ‘DRIVER ALERT’ – driver alert system
• ‘LANE ASSIST’ & ‘SIDE ASSIST’
• Adaptive cruise control including Front Assistant emergency braking
• ‘MANOEUVER ASSST’ with Front & Rear Parking Sensors and Rear-View Camera
• ‘KESSY’ Keyless access with engine start/stop button and alarm system
• Electrically opening/closing tailgate
• Virtual Pedal – automatic gesture opening of tailgate
• Rain & Light Sensor, Automatic on/off lights and wipers

Exterior Specification 

• LED Front Fog Lights with Corner Function
• LED headlights, LED ‘DAY LIGHTS’, telescopic headlight washers, LED tail lights
• Electric side mirrors with memory, heated, folding, auto-dimming functions
• Heated washer jets
• 18” Alloy Wheels

Interior Specification 

• Leather heated multifunction steering wheel
• Triple Zone Automatic Air Conditioning
• Electric seats for driver & passenger, lumbar support, memory function
• LED Ambient Lights, reading lamps front/rear, illuminated interior door handle
• Front heated seats
• Remote folding of rear backrest from luggage compartment

Upholstery 

• Full Leather interior – available in Black or Beige

Multimedia

• ‘AMUNDSEN’ 8” colour touch screen Infotainment System
• Smartlink+ incl. Android Auto & Apple Carplay – wireless connect
• Digital Dash – Digital Instrument Panel
• Sound System CANTON – 10 speakers + digital equalizer & subwoofer
• Wireless smartphone charging

The Sportline adds:

• Dynamic Chassis Control with ‘Driving Mode Select‘
• ‘PARK ASSIST’ with parallel park button
• Matrix LED Lights, LED daylights, dynamic angle, telescopic headlight washers
• Full LED rear lights with dynamic indicator
• “SUNSET” tint for side & rear windows from B pillar back
• Sports Leather heated multifunction steering wheel with DSG paddles
• Dash panel trims in Carbon with ambient lighting
• Rear heated seats in addition to front heated seat
• Adjustable seat cushion depth
• Sportline Alcantara Leather interior, Sports Seats with integrated headrests in black
• ‘COLUMBUS’ 9” colour touch screen infotainment System
• 19” Alloy Wheels

Our Review Vehicle’s Optional Equipment

• Area View 360-degree camera – $1,500
• Front Seat Base Cushion Length Adjustment $450
• Heated Windscreen – $750

Including the optional equipment, our review car’s retail price is $82,690.

There are many, many accessories available for your Superb; for example, while there are 6 options of wheels on the Skoda NZ website, under Accessories you have access to no less than 26 alloy-wheel options. There are also roof boxes, baby seats, booster seats, tyre chains, and dog safety belts.

You’ll get to pick from eight colours;

• Moon White Metallic
• Energy Blue
• Black Magic Pearlescent
• Brilliant Silver Metallic
• Lava Blue Metallic
• Race Blue Metallic
• Velvet Red Metallic
• Graphite Grey Metallic

Only Velvet Red Metallic is an additional $1,000 cost.

For a full list of specs and options available for the 2022 Skoda Superb Sportline iV, head on over to the Skoda New Zealand website.

How Does The 2022 Skoda Superb Sportline iV Wagon Compare To Its Competition?

Want a plug-in hybrid station wagon? It’s slim pickings!

Note each of these models is eligible for a $5,750 rebate under the Clean Car Scheme.

Make/ Model	Engine	Power/ Torque kW/Nm (combined)	Seats	EV-only range, up to (Km)	EV Battery Capacity, kWh	Fuel L/100km	Boot Space litres	Price
MINI Countryman Yours AWD	1.5-litre, 3-cylinder turbo-petrol hybrid	165/385	5	45	9.6	2.4	405	$74,540
Skoda Superb Sportline iV	1.4-litre, 4-cylinder, turbo-petrol hybrid	160/400	5	62	13	1.6	660	$79,990
Skoda Octavia PHEV Style	1.4-litre, 4-cylinder, turbo-petrol hybrid	150/350	5	60	13	1.6	600	$65,990

First Impressions Of The 2022 Skoda Superb Sportline iV Wagon

Finished in Race Blue, our Superb Sportline iV Wagon looked excellent. Crisp, sharp lines, a clamshell bonnet, excellent wheel design and a particularly tidy rear end make for a classic shape that shouldn’t date too quickly.

Skoda has taken the opportunity to fill in the grille, so it’s still there for looks but is almost flat. It does house the charging port, opened by pushing in on the right-hand side of the grille.

There are fake exhaust tips at the rear – what’s up with everyone doing that? – but overall it’s a stylish, executive wagon that I certainly enjoyed returning to in the supermarket carpark.

What’s The Interior Like In The 2022 Skoda Superb Sportline iV Wagon?

You can choose any colour for the interior of your Superb Sportline iV, as long as it’s black. Such a shame, as our Scout test model two years ago at least had ivory-coloured headlining and pillars and this made a big difference to the interior of that car. All black can make the Superb iV feel smaller inside. The Style model has an option of a beige leather interior but not so the Sportline.

Still, it’s well-made and nicely done with Alcantara on the seats and doors, and that always makes a car feel that much more special. There are pleats on the seats too, and most of my passengers commented on this, it’s another touch that lifts the quality of the interior. There’s some carbon finishing on the doors, dash and console. This is preferable to yet more piano black and is one of those things that your fingers are drawn straight to, to have a feel.

Skoda’s Clever Touch items appear around the cabin, like the parking ticket holder on the windscreen (yes, I did use it) and the umbrella holder in the front doors (also used). Little things that can make a difference to your day-to-day drive.

The door pockets are felt-lined, something that was missing in our recent test of the Mercedes-Benz C200. Having felt lining in the doors stops things like water bottles rattling about when on the move – another small thing, but again makes a difference to your daily commute. The glovebox and centre console cubby also have a felt base, as does the small flip-down cubby on the right-hand side of the steering wheel. The glovebox itself is a pretty reasonable size; we’re seeing them shrink in size lately, so it was good to see one that you could still get a box of tissues in.

Both front seats are electric, have 3-stage heating, and have memory buttons. Both front seats also have manual cushion adjustment for those who are not vertically challenged. The rear seats have 3-stage heating too. The steering wheel is heated as well, and again you get to pick from one of three heat settings. I see that even the base iV has a heated steering wheel, and that’s pretty impressive.

Front seat passengers have access to a Qi wireless phone charging pad and a single USB-A port. The centre cubby has another USB-A port and also an air conditioning vent to keep your chocolates from melting. The glovebox also has this feature.

The iV is fitted with Skoda’s latest user interface for the central screen, and I’ll say it’s an improvement overall, with a bit more capability around customisation. I did find that often when starting the car the screen would revert to the second page of the home screen (which had nothing on it) and I’d have to flick it back to the first page. The Superb iV now comes with gesture control and it doesn’t take long to get used to swiping your hand across the screen to change it. On multiple pages of the screen there is a hand icon; if you see this, you can swipe to change it. 

The driver’s dashboard has a multitude of options, with 4 screen display options and 8 types of information you can show. Something for everyone here! It’s great to see tri-zone air conditioning included, although I was surprised not to see a heads-up display at near-on $80,000. 

As always for a Superb, space is almost overwhelming. Rear seat passengers are set for a luxurious ride since there is so much legroom back there. Headroom in the rear is above average, and there’s plenty of shoulder room for 5. You could always ask your local police station for a second opinion on this.

The boot is huge at 660 litres, with that going to 1,950 litres with the rear seat down. Unlike a non-hybrid Superb, there’s no spare in the iV; instead, a false floor reveals more storage space for your charging cables and a tyre pump for emergencies. The extra space has been taken up by the EV battery.

What’s The 2022 Skoda Superb Sportline iV Wagon Like To Drive?

Skoda claims that the Superb Sportline iV Wagon should have a combined total range of 930Km. With the current price of gas, that seems a very attractive number to aim for. They also suggest the car should get ‘up to’ 62Km running in EV-only mode, and that could suit a lot of people’s daily running. Keep in mind that New Zealanders drive an average of 27Km per day, well short of 62Km. Ideally, that’s enough range for a trip to work and home again, for most people.

We’re well aware that Wellington is quite possibly the worst place for an EV. It’s rare that we ever actually match – or shock-horror, better – a manufacturer’s claim for distance on a charge. That said, it’s exactly the same scenario for petrol or diesel cars we test. With so many hills, Wellington is hell on any sort of consumption. So, what about the Superb iV? We had the car for a couple of weeks, and both John and I shared the car over that time. We both managed to get around 45Km of distance before the engine would start. In the scheme of things of an EV with a 13kWh battery driving around Wellington, that was about spot on. I expect in an almost-flat town like Christchurch, you might get the 62Km range in EV mode.

In the cabin, there’s not much to give away that this isn’t a ‘normal’ petrol-powered Skoda. Other than a few extra buttons on the centre console, you might not have any idea. The car will always start in EV mode, which is great. There’s an E-Mode button on the console, that once pressed will bring up a menu on the centre screen. From here you can leave the car in EV mode, or hit the Hybrid mode button.

This will allow the car to use the petrol engine when it feels the need. There’s also an Auto checkbox next to Hybrid mode; if selected, the car will only charge the EV battery up as much as it sees fit. Or you can touch the checkbox to switch this charging mode to manual, and then increase the max charge on the battery by touching on the slider and dragging it up (or down). It’s a system that works but does feel a bit laborious when Skoda could have simply had a ‘charge’ mode to force the engine to charge the battery up completely. Still, any driver can get in and simply drive the car and it will take care of everything. For most people, this is all they want.

There are a couple of things to be aware of with the EV side of things and the Superb iV. Firstly, the car doesn’t do DC charging. That means if you want to charge the EV battery up at a public fast-charging station, it will take around 3.5 hours. This is where DC charging has it all over AC-only charging.

One thing that occurred now and again was surging when in coast mode, so no brake regen turned on at all. Generally, when coasting the car will do just that. But both John and I had times when the car would accelerate slightly instead of simply coasting and eventually slowing. It was a bit unnerving, but I think we both got used to it.

In all other aspects, the drive is easy and comfortable. It can get to 100km/h in 7.7 seconds, plenty enough for a wagon although 2 seconds slower than the Scout. It sounds good too. While the petrol engine is pretty quiet on the whole, wind it out above 4,000rpm and it sings a nice tune.

The driver gets to pick from 5 drive modes; Eco, Comfort, Normal, Sport, and Individual. Each behaves as expected, but after a couple of days I simply left the car in Normal and we were good with that. Weirdly, there is a separate Sport button, although you can select Sport by using the drive mode button. Seems like a bit of a double-up.

Like the Scout on the same tyres, the Superb iV does have a fair amount of tyre noise that comes into the cabin. Road noise is a bit high too, but it’s not to the point of interfering with conversation.  

Visibility out of the car is excellent, with huge side windows and blind-spot monitoring as a backup. Driving the Superb iV reminds me how impractical an SUV is in this respect. Seat comfort is very high, with a lot of adjustability and a generally high level of butt and side support in the front, at least.

The ride quality in the car is excellent, on all surfaces. The standard Superb has a great ride, but the extra weight of the hybrid system has only helped this. Still on driving the car, the steering wheel feels excellent in your hands, and I was very happy to see that Skoda has resisted putting haptic controls on the steering wheel, and have stuck to physical buttons that you have to push. These work, so please don’t go haptic, Skoda.

The Superb Sportline iV has matrix LED adaptive headlights, and as expected, they are excellent. They’re cornering lamps as well, and it was good to see that you don’t have to actually indicate to turn on the corning lamp function. Just turning left around a bend will engage them, adding another layer of safety to nighttime driving.

Handling on the iV model is close to the Scout I last drove. There obviously isn’t the same amount of grip since you lose AWD with the iV, but you have to push quite hard to feel this. The Superb has always had great handling and this hasn’t been lost on the iV. You don’t really feel the extra weight of the car when driving (it’s around 70Kg heavier) so that’s a testament to the engineer’s work in this area. Steering feel is reasonable, and braking is excellent. 

I guess most people will read this review to find out about fuel consumption. Over 800Km of everyday driving, we managed 4.2L/100Km out of the Superb iV. That’s a fair way off Skoda’s claim of 1.6L/100Km, but again we refer to our location. In saying that, our test car had covered 4,000Km in total driving, and the average fuel economy for that distance was 5.2L/100Km. Again, pretty high but still over 2L/100Km less than the 8.3 we got out of the 2-litre turbo Scout in 2020.

JOHN’S POINT OF VIEW

I liked the Skoda Superb iV, especially the Sportline model. It was sharp and didn’t feel like a car with a body kit. The blue was great, something we are not used to seeing among all of the black, silver and white cars we get to test – such a beautiful colour in the sun. 

Overall I felt the Superb iV is a great package, the spec and trim level make it excellent value. It feels similar to a much more expensive European car, like  BMW, Mercedes or Audi. If you wanted a model like this, from any of those brands, you would be starting at the same price, with a lot fewer options. It would also look like a base model car, which the Sportline does not. 

Fred has covered a lot of the details, and my two gripes about the car were the media screen and the gearbox.

I will start with the gearbox, while at slow driving this unexpected heavy shudder rocks the car. I thought I had broken something, as it felt more like someone lifting the clutch to the point where the car would shudder and stall. But this was an automatic, which really threw me. I was not sure if it was expected or if it was something I was doing. But it happened every time I was crawling in traffic or trying to pull away slowly. I just got to the point where I would press the accelerator enough to get me past this point so it wouldn’t be an issue. But this means you can’t crawl in traffic, you have to jump forward instead. If I had purchased this car, I would be bringing it back to the dealer to get checked as it does not feel like something that should be happening.

The media screen is less of an issue, more of a personal thing. It has a selection of 8 main menu buttons, which all have images for buttons. Already it looks dated, and I can see it feeling more and more dated as time goes on. Most vehicles use icons, which lean more towards a timeless feel and does not drag your attention to them. I also did not feel the icons reflected the quality level of the car that it was being displayed in, they made it feel a bit cheap. 

If it was not for the shudder in the gearbox the Superb iV would be a high scoring near flawless car for me, so I hope this is an isolated issue or that it can be updated and fixed.

[DRIVELIFE NOTE] We drove another Superb PHEV after this test car, and there was no shudder or other issues, so we can only assume it was unique to our test car.

2022 Skoda Superb Sportline iV Wagon Specifications

Vehicle Type	5-door, front-wheel drive, plug-in hybrid large station wagon
Starting Price	$79,990
Price as Tested	$82,690
Engine	1.4-litre, 4-cylinder turbo-petrol with plug-in hybrid capability
Power, Torque kW/Nm	Petrol engine: 115kW/250Nm Electric engine: 85kW/330NmCombined rating: 160kW/400Nm
Transmission	6-speed dual-clutch automatic (DSG)
Spare Wheel	Pump
Kerb Weight, Kg	1,730
Length x Width x Height mm	4862x2031x1477
Boot Space / Cargo Capacity, Litres (seats up/seats down)	660/1,950
Fuel tank capacity, litres	50
Lithium-Ion Battery Capacity, kilo-Watt hours	13
Fuel Economy, L/100km	Advertised Spec – Combined – 1.6 Real-World Test – Combined – 4.2 Low Usage: 0-6 / Medium Usage 6-12 / High Usage 12+
Towing Capacity Kg, unbraked/braked	750/1,600
Turning circle metres	11.7 Small: 6-10m / Medium 10-12m / Large 12m+
Warranty	5 Years/150,000Km Battery Warranty: 8 Years or up to 160,000Km Yearly service intervals fixed-price service plans available: 3 Years or up to 45,000Km: $1,695 5 Years or up to 75,000Km: $3,195
Safety information	ANCAP Rating – 5 stars – Link (2015 model last tested) Rightcar.govt.nz – 5 Stars – NPW600

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