SKODA ELROQ

We can hardly contain our excitement about this new, er, grey crossover

- FELIX PAGE

WHY WE'RE RUNNING IT Is this sensible, long-legged compact SUV the perfect beginner's electric car?

I've never been so excited to not be excited. Don't get me wrong: I feel privileged to have lived with such gems as an Audi TT RS and a top-drawer Cupra Leon Estate in recent months, and I had many a cheery trip in the wonderfully extroverted Volkswagen ID Buzz and Abarth 500e that I ran last year. But sometimes you just want a car. A no-nonsense, practicality-focused, family-friendly mobility device that does the whole A-to-B thing really, really well and then still doesn't feel like a chore to take onwards from C to D and beyond.

Step forward my gloriously grey Skoda Elroq, a car so anonymously specified that I could trip over it when walking out of my front door. It's the absolute antithesis of extroverted and is unlikely to set the pulse of any petrolhead racing. But stay with me, because it's far more interesting than it looks.

A brief recap: the Elroq is Skoda's second bespoke electric car, riding on the same MEB platform as the Volkswagen ID 3, Cupra Born, Audi Q4 E-tron and Skoda's own Enyaq - effectively the same car with about 200mm more metal behind the rear axle. Dimensionally, the Elroq is a good match for the likes of the Ford Explorer, Renault Scenic and BMW iX1, and it can be had with a range of different batteries, powertrains and trims in a price bracket that spans from the very low £30,000s up towards the mid-£50,000s.