We have gone full electric today - Skoda Elroc - very happy!
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This gets me almost anywhere I need to go in Zurich. Faster than going by car, no need to look for parking possibilities. I admit the seats and the stereo in our Audi Q3 are better, but it spends its time in the garage mostly, if I‘m not going to the wine dealer‘s or to some nice place in the mountains or south of the border.
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Be interested to know what real-world range you get…?
Have driven Skodas while traveling in Europe. Have always liked them. Enjoy.
Hi, no problem. I’ll provide an update in the coming weeks
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Before returning to the UK I lived in Basel for many years. Like Zurich, the tram/bus system was just brilliant and my Audi A3 also spent most of its time in the underground car park at home. Exceptional value too with an annual Baselland ticket costing just over CHF600.
Main use for the car was shopping in France and Germany and trips to the mountains!!
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Picked up our new M340i Touring last week.
What a car ! The straight six engine is lovely, smooth as silk, docile when pootling around town, a beast in sport mode on an open road, great handling.
Been grappling with the infotainment, but I think I’ve almost got it now 
. We had a Volvo V60 Cross Country prior to this and I would say it’s Google-based infotainment was better (not as much fun to drive though…)
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Congrats on your new 340. Apart from the simple genius of the openable glass hatch (no longer fitted to the new 5 series) after trading mine in last year; the stand out feature which I didn’t really notice until it was gone is the superb suspension set up - fantastic for UK roads. The replacement car doesn’t have a patch on this aspect. Enjoy!
Peter
The opening hatch glass is such a great feature and one I use all the time on the Dog Wagon (E91). IIRC the feature first appeared on the 3 with the E46 Touring. Only big issue is that the wiring can eventually fail after many opening and closings. Happened to me about 6 years ago and Munich legends had to fix that for me for quite some cost (labour)..,
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Unfortunately, BMW, along with Audi & Mercedes, are engaged in frantic cost cutting to recover some of the billions lost developing their electric cars which not enough of their customers want at present.
I looked at replacing my 2013 3 Series last year for the nearest equivalent & was prepared to spend in the region of £50,000. Unfortunately, many of the minor bits & pieces I had grown to appreciate were absent & the quality of some interior materials was clearly lower (& doubtless cheaper) than my current car. Also the fabled extras list was noticeably shorter than 13 years ago, & despite being in a position to have pretty much what I want ( a situation I didn’t enjoy in 2013), I couldn’t even spec the car to the level of my current one.
I have decided to keep my current car until it falls apart.
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Thanks ! I was a little worried the ride might be a bit harsh but I went for 18" wheels with non-run flat tyres, coupled with adaptive suspension which together give a very smooth ride. The car stays very flat through the corners which is great. I must remember to make use of the glass hatch.
Yeah, living in Switzerland, you just don’t use your car very often. Public transport is so good that my car is a weekend toy….
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@Csi_basel @manlad When I lived in Basel (Muttenz) for a few years I didn’t have a car at all. My TNW card and half price Abo took me to work and all around Switzerland during free time. Seamless connections and precise timetables.
Back in the Uk now and a car seems a necessity.
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Very true, a car is almost a necessity in most of the UK. That shows in the 2025 government stats which record 36m cars in regular use on UK roads!!!
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Really spot on
If you just take the UK, with 36 million cars on the road & a supposed ICE ban from 2030, the car manufacturers saw huge amounts of money to be made selling 36 million vehicles in a short space of time.
The management’s of these companies appear to have been overcome with greed instead of realising that this was never going to happen overnight.
Their unbelievable mistakes have cost them dearly, possibly forever, crippling their already healthy profits & allowing the Chinese in take a huge part of their market.
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Been away on holiday for a week in the iX3. Done 750 miles (total in last month now 1300 miles) at an average of 4 miles per kWh (not used efficiency settings due to need for air con to work). Been on M6, M1, M3, M27, M5, M42, M40
Drives very well and v efficient. Haven’t been trying to be efficient but just does 3.9-4.1 miles per kWh everywhere which is roughly 1.3 better than the iX would have been. Charged at a friend’s house and one quick charge at Ionity Walsall on the way home all of 19kWh just to top up to get home and that took just five minutes with a peak charging rate of 325kW (average was 260ish) compared to iX peak of 195 (which I saw a few times) with free energy tomorrow (octopus agile combined with our solar and wind turbine) total charging cost is all of £8.59 or about 1.1p per mile I think the tyres will be more expensive than that
CarPlay is annoying as it needs reconnecting nearly every day - hopefully will get fixed with a software update at some point. And the podcast volume dips with any traffic / satnav announcements and the volume never comes back without me cranking it back up which is irritating. Again will be sorted by an update some day
Don’t like the steering assist / cruise control which twice announced it was going to do an emergency stop (from 70 mph on a dual carriageway) because I wasn’t interacting with the steering enough. Not happened again in the last 700 miles but I could do without that kind of shock thank you very much
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That’s a pretty good outcome, I realise you hadn’t driven it before ordering so hopefully it has been good for comfort etc too. It would be unusual for a brand new model not to have a few software niggles but hopefully an OTA update will fix them. I have seen a few on the road now, for me the styling is OK from some angles but a bit blocky from others. At least it is not a dull me-too design. The iX5 has just been revealed and that is very imposing!
We just got back from 2 weeks in NW Scotland. Sun, wind and rain, two sea large kayaks on the roof and two bikes in the back. The EV3 just shrugged it all off and was perfectly comfortable and just easy to live with. It has usefully more range than my EV6 and loses only a little in terms of driving pleasure. We came back down from Mallaig yesterday in strong winds and rain, fully laden, and managed 3.3mi/kWh which when you consider the aero penalty of the boats is pretty decent. In regular use we can get close to 5mi/kWh fairly easily, at this time of year an effective 320-340 miles. Sometimes above that.
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This sort of crap is utterly dangerous. Take it back before somebody dies. Maybe “the machine just got upset”? 
If it was a Naim box with a slight buzz on one channel there would be an uproar but nobody would die.
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An alternative view might be that a system that brings the car to a halt if, for example, you have fallen asleep or passed out and are therefore not controlling the car at 70mph down the motorway is a good thing.
Of course the calibration of these things is tricky but my car will sense if you are not holding the wheel and give you a warning. Fair enough. I have never waited long enough to see if it will eventually brake!
Bruce
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