- Skoda’s smallest EV may prove a continent-wide success story after selling over 45,000 units in the last six months.
- The Elroq is Skoda’s equivalent to the VW ID.3, but with a taller crossover body, and it’s €10,000 ($11,300) cheaper than a Model Y.
- Skoda will add a larger three-row electric SUV to its lineup, followed by an electric Octavia.
Skoda may not be a familiar name in the United States, but the brand is very popular in Europe—and it’s seen an uptick in EV sales recently. Like its parent company Volkswagen, which overtook Tesla as the continent’s best-selling EV manufacturer in Q1 2025, Skoda is also on the upswing, even outselling VW in certain national markets.
This is the Skoda Elroq. And it’s further proof that if you make it affordable to do so, people will move on from gasoline.
Photo by: Skoda
You can think of the Elroq as a slightly taller Volkswagen ID.3. It’s around a foot shorter than a Model Y, but it’s also cheaper than one, starting from around €35,000 ($39,700) without any national EV incentives applied. That’s €10,000 ($11,300) cheaper than a Model Y, and it will make a lot of sense for those buyers who don’t need a midsize vehicle (which is most Europeans.)
Skoda has been at this sort of thing for a minute. Its first EV was the Citigo iV, a badge-engineered version of the Volkswagen e-Up! with a slightly lower price than the VW. It was quite successful for an electric city car, but Skoda’s big EV break came when it launched its first bespoke EV, the Enyaq, in late 2022, which gained a more rakish coupe-like body style in 2022.
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Source: Skoda
The Enyaq and Enyaq Coupe were Skoda’s version of the ID.4 and ID.5, but they looked completely different and had an interior that had a more traditional luxurious feel compared to their VW brethren. When I drove one back in 2021, I declared it was better than an ID.4 because its interior felt more posh and was more practical than the VW’s. Skoda recently gave the Enyaq a facelift, which helped it stay fresh and I’m seeing lots of them around Bucharest where I live, a sign that it’s still very popular.
However, the Enyaq may be a bit too big and expensive for some buyers, so when Skoda launched a smaller and more affordable electric crossover, the Elroq, buyers immediately liked it.
The Elroq sold more than 45,000 units in the last six months through April, and it should become even more popular with the introduction of the Elroq RS performance variant with 335 hp and several go-faster upgrades. With Europeans looking for alternatives to the Tesla Model 3, the Elroq may get an additional sales boost..
If they want something larger, the Enyaq is a more direct Model Y rival and it starts at around €42,000 ($47,600, undercutting the Tesla by €3,000 ($3,400).
The larger Enyaq also had a good sales start to 2025. In its official press blurbs, Skoda calls it “one of Europe’s most in-demand electric vehicles,” pointing to a 44.7% year-over-year sales increase in Q1 when it delivered 20,200 units. It also noted that it received 25,000 new orders for the Enyaq by the end of March, signaling a strong demand for this practical family hauler.
But even if Europeans prefer smaller vehicles than Americans, there’s still a market for larger three-row electric SUVs. Skoda is working on just such a model, expected to debut toward the end of 2026 and serve as the brand’s flagship. It was previewed by the Vision 7S concept and it won’t have many direct rivals in Europe aside from the Kia EV9, Hyundai Ioniq 9 or the Volvo EX90.
Skoda has long been VW’s secret weapon wherever it’s sold. It looks like that trend is going to continue in the electric era.
The hugely popular Skoda Octavia is expected to gain a fully electric variant not long after the debut of the seven-seater, serving as a direct Tesla Model 3 rival. Not much is known about the new electric liftback (and wagon) other than the fact that it will be previewed by a close-to-production concept at IAA 2025 in September. It is believed to switch from the MEB platform that underpins all of Skoda’s current EVs to the SSP platform.
This new architecture is seen as an evolution of MEB, which will help VW group brands cut production costs with a simpler design and underpin a wide range of vehicles with power outputs ranging from 113 hp to 986 hp, according to the manufacturer. It’s also expected to serve as the basis for the fully electric VW Golf, which is expected around 2029.
Skoda could gain a lot by stepping into the void left by Tesla’s waning popularity in Europe and the first signs are already there. The Czech automaker had a market share of 5.9% in Europe in 2024, making it the continent’s fourth-largest car brand by sales volume and it may break into the top three if its EVs prove as popular as we think they will be.
