After driving the car more, we started picking up more details of how to get the most of it. As many other cars without a clutch and traditional manual gear box, this one has D and B modes. I know of older cars equipped with “2” and “3” for driving in mountains, but this only has B and D.
When you start the car, the D mode is totally without regen (Recouperation = 0). Other reviewers have noted that this car has 4 levels, but it does in fact have 5 levels: 0, 1, 2 and 3 for D, and a fixed level 4 for the B mode. Once in D, the gear shifter can be moved left to increase from 0 to 1, all the way to level 3. Move it right to get back toward 0.
Graphically, the B is below (behind) the D, so it would be natural to move the gear shifter one click up (forward) to get back to D. Doesn’t work that way, because that will make it go from B to N, skipping D. It was only a while later that I found that pulling back on the gear shifter would keep alternating between B and D. Aha! This was very useful. Leaving the recuperation level at 0 in D, it is easy to change between 0 and 4 directly (or 1 and 4, 2 and 4 or 3 and 4). In particular, I liked to leave the D in 0, and then alternate between 0 and 4. At other times, when driving in the hills, I would some times use the gear shifter through all the modes, even B, to keep the right speed on varying levels of downslopes and other traffic. Let’s just call that D0, D1, D2, D3 and B4.
On the Tesla, I really missed a proper coasting mode. I used to put the car in N, just to let it coast. But after a few shifts between D and N, it would eventually refuse to let me use the cruise control for a while. In the Skoda, the D0 is really a coasting mode: Let go of the accelerator and the car truly floats. Yet unlike the Tesla, the accelerator it ready for immediate action, without moving the gear shifter. In many ways, I like the regen (recuperation, as they call it) much better in the Skoda than in the Tesla Model S. Neither has full one-pedal driving, while the Skoda gets very close to it. Unless it’s downhill where you want to stop, you often don’t need the brakes unless there are unexpected slowing traffic or obstacles.
Read the other blog posts in the series for more about the CitiGo e iV
All posts in "EV: Skoda CitiGo e iV"