- Skoda Vision 7S concept car driven
- Bold new face, clever interior
- There’s even a new badge
Skoda’s rewriting its own rule book, entering a new electric era with a new design vision for the company and its cars. The Vision 7S concept car is right at the heart of that, aiming to give the Czech brand a major shake-up.
The Vision 7S not only previews a new design philosophy inside and out but to also show off just how much the VW Group MEB platform can stretch. Skoda envisions an 89kWh battery pack fitting underneath, allowing up to 373 miles of e-range and 200kW fast charging.
Fine, but how real are the looks?
Well, this definitely is how Skoda models of the future will look like – that’s for sure. And it’s a drastic new look compared to even the most modern production Skodas; ‘this is really the next step for Skoda,’ says Vision 7S lead designer, Franck Le Gall, ‘and this has to be one of the biggest steps for a brand within the VW Group – normally it’s much more incremental.’
It’s all about that new face. The visor-like front end the Vision 7S has – Skoda calls it the Tech Deck Face – will be the basis of the brand’s design direction. ‘When you see a car in the distance, or in your rear view mirror, we want you to recognise it what’s coming towards you,’ says. To our eyes, there are elements of Kia’s EV9 SUV concept, as well as the new Range Rover at the rear with its darkened taillights. It’s all very clean, which is something Le Gall strives to keep for production cars.
‘These new customers of Skoda – what we call the contemporary explorers – we’ve seen that these people drive to work as normal in the city, but then they go do something active at the weekend like cycling or skiing,’ says Le Gall. ‘So, we wanted to take some inspiration from clever product design seen in bicycles and so on.’ Le Gall points to his trainers, showing the soles are of a similar construction to the materials used in the bumpers – which use recycled tyres – and the orange flecks of colour seen in the Vision 7S concept being like the finger pulls on the back.
What about the interior?
While the exterior is all about cleanliness, the interior is designed to make life as easy as possible. So much so that there are even physical switches and dials that are used to control various bits of tech. ‘We have to find a balance of what our customers want and what will be the price of the real car,’ says senior UI designer, Daniel Hajek, ‘but we are listening to those customers who are saying ‘where are my hard keys?’’
The interior has a huge centre console that almost looks like its floating, as do the six chairs placed either side. Where’s the seventh? Well that’s specifically a baby seat that’s mounted on the centre console. It’s a bit of a weird place to put it, but Hajek assures us it’s the best place; ‘we’ve got all of the crash data that tells us here is the right place to put the child seat.’ There’s also a camera attached to the roof lining so you can see the little one via the central screen.
Other neat touches include loads of magnetic points to attach things like your phone (Hajek shows us how the Skoda app on your phone can transform your device into a trackpad for the large screen when it’s housed in the centre console), as well as a backpack that integrates into the back seats.
There are also different modes: Drive and Relax. Drive is self explanatory, where the central screen is in portrait mode and close for you to reach and all of the information displayed to you is useful for the roads ahead. Then there’s Relax, where the dashboard recedes, the seats slide around slightly to make it more like a lounge space and the screen flips to a widescreen layout so you can play games or watch movies.
So, it actually drives?
Well, yes. But it is a concept car, so it’s only really designed to move under its own power long enough for it to be parked on a plinth at a motor show, or rolled onto a car transporter. So don’t expect us to tell you that this is the revolutionary future of how Skoda’s future EVs will drive. Even so, we were given the keys long enough to whip around in the Vision 7S.
We drove it rather gingerly, given it’s a priceless one-off concept. The steering is hyper-sensitive, with a mere twitch making the power steering motor squeak and whine, and the pedals are obtrusively firm and lack even a breath of feedback. The fastest we managed was 11mph.
But that’s not the point of this. Instead, we learned of Skoda’s future priorities from the driving seat. For example, Skoda’s not going all Tesla and deleting all information straight ahead of you, as there’s a small drivers instrument cluster showing speed, range and some small driver assist tech guidance. The roofline is low but the seating position is high, giving you this sort of sporty crossover feel and less of a ‘I’m driving a bloody great bus’ you sometimes get from seven-seaters.
Skoda Vision 7S concept car: first impressions
Skoda’s new vision for the future still references its past and present. The Vision 7S is designed to simplify seven-seater cars but also cleverly package more into it. Simply Clever, geddit? But aside from the concept car fluff and guff, there are strands of Skoda’s DNA in the 7S that are alive and well, and we’re excited to see what production cars are spun off it.
