Skoda UK has showcased a one-off camper concept carved out of its Enyaq iV 80 electric crossover. Designed to transition between summer festival camping, eco-friendly road-tripping and good, old-fashioned park camping, the capable Enyaq FestEVal electric micro-camper offers up to 338 miles (544 km) of range per charge, 30-minute charging, and room for four people to lie down and get a good night's sleep. Once the summer weather and event schedule come to an end, it readily transitions back into an everyday utility vehicle.
These days, there's no reason to build out a camper from scratch. A rooftop tent can quickly add sleeping quarters to a wide variety of vehicles, and the myriad camper-in-a-box kits available across the world can fill the vehicle's interior out with cooking equipment, dining space, food and water storage, and other key camper features. Plus, it's easy to remove these components when the camping trip is over, bringing the vehicle back to empty base vehicle form.
Skoda has gone the off-the-shelf component route with the Festeval, topping it with a set of crossbars that support a hardshell rooftop tent. The two-person tent pops up in seconds to make for super-quick, convenient transitions between driving to sleeping.
To double that capacity, Skoda UK has turned to well-known Czech camper box manufacturer Egoé in adding a camper layout inside the Enyaq's doors. Egoé has long been shrinking its camper kit design, making kits smaller and sleeker so that they fit a larger selection of vehicles, from the types of large vans that have always made effective campers, down to smaller 4x4s and station wagons.
The box in the Festeval is an adaptation of Egoé's latest and sleekest camper kit, the Nestboard. Debuted for summer 2022 (Northern Hemisphere), the Nestboard has been purpose-built with a lower, slimmer design that offers the best headroom and luggage space in estates like the Volkswagen Golf Variant VIII and Skoda Octavia Combi IV.
While tall, bulky amenities like a refrigerator don't fit within the Nestboard's low, slim frame, and the fun but unnecessary hatchet is certainly out, the kit brings the kitchen staples by way of a compact single-burner stove and a sink with collapsible basin. Instead of a hard canister or tank, Egoé stores water in a bladder, which works better inside the slimmed down dimensions. That bladder can also be pulled out and hung up for use as a solar shower.
A lid fit to the collapsible sink increases available worktop space, and the slide-out unit also doubles as an outdoor dining table or desk. Flip the front table panels over, and you'll even find built-in game boards for the likes of chess and checkers.
During the ride to camp, the Nestboard remains folded in the trunk, allowing passengers to sit in the rear seats. At night, those seats fold down and the Nestboard mattress platform sets up to sleep two people inside the vehicle. For the Festeval, that completes the creation of a four-person camper out of a 183-inch-long (465-cm) Enyaq.
Skoda has gone with the longest-range Enyaq iV 80, which has an 82-kWh battery for up to an estimated 338 miles (544 km, WLTP) of combined range. The battery charges at speeds up to 135 kW, hitting 80 percent in roughly 30 minutes.
Skoda uses the Enyaq Festeval to highlight its first electric SUV's specs, features and potential for road trips, but the one-off show car also does a good job exploring the concept of a light, flexible electric camper that could be a viable zero-emissions alternative. If RVers are going to embrace electric vehicles, lightweight, versatile solutions like Egoé kits and/or rooftop tents on crossovers with 300+ miles (483+ km) of range seem like a good first adopter vessel. They can offer well more range than the sub-200-mile limitations of some of Europe's first electric camper vans with more RV-style amenities than a simple mattress thrown down on the folded seats of a Tesla Model S.
Monday's Skoda announcement did not include any mention of plans to sell the Egoé Nestboard or rooftop tent as accessories. It would be easy enough to purchase a rooftop tent for use with the Enyaq iV, but Egoé does not currently advertise a Nestboard compatible with the electric SUV. That said, the €2,940 (approx. US$3,000) box is Egoe's most recent launch, and the company offers multiple versions of older kits like the Nestbox Camper, Hiker and Roamer, each of which is sized to fit a different sets of vehicles. So we'll be surprised if it doesn't do the same for the Nestboard, and this show car certainly seems like a sneak peek of the next variant.
The Enyaq iV 80 itself comes tagged with a £42,435 (US$51,250) recommended on the road (OTR) price in the UK. The Enyaq iV 60 with smaller 62-kWh battery starts at £38,480 (US$46,475).
Source: Skoda
