Skoda has comprehensively dismissed the notion that electric cars aren’t suited to cold conditions by using an Enyaq to set two new ice driving records. A British team supported by Skoda UK set the new benchmarks on a frozen lake near Krokom, Sweden, on Thursday 19 January 2023.

The first record broken was for the Longest Continuous Vehicle Drift on Ice. Driving the recently launched Enyaq vRS SUV, British motoring journalist Richard Meaden set a new officially-verified record for Longest Continuous Vehicle Drift on Ice by holding the car in a controlled slide for 4.568 miles. Meaden’s drift beat the previous record of 3.872 miles, set in China in 2022. To set the record, Meaden kept the car sliding for more than 15 minutes around a purpose-built circular course. In breaking the first record, Meaden set a second record for the ‘Longest Continuous Vehicle Drift on Ice (electric car)’.

British driver Richard Meaden drifted an all-electric Enyaq vRS for more than 4.5 miles to set the new record

Set with a Guinness World Records adjudicator present and international drifting judge David Kalas as a witness, Škoda set the record on the brand’s fourth day on location following numerous practice runs with different tyre combinations and minimal daylight hours. A total of 18 hours of drifting were put in across the full five days in sub-zero temperatures to achieve the perfect drift.

According to Škoda, the car used to complete the record was fitted with 20-inch alloy wheels and two different types of tyre. The Däckproffsen ‘event tyres’ (sourced from Michelin) 245/35-R20 tyres on the front had 600 5 mm studs, enabling greater traction and steering input on the frozen surface, while the Nokian Hakkapelitta 255/45-R20 tyres fitted on the rear wheels had 300 2 mm studs across the tyre surface. During the record attempt, the Enyaq completed 39 laps of the course, achieving a top speed of 30.25 mph. 

SKODA Enyaq iV Coupe vRS Review

Skoda Enyaq Review

A total of 18 hours of drifting were put in across the full five days in sub-zero temperatures to achieve the perfect drift