How to change while staying the course? In the Volkswagen group family, there are these manufacturers who will have to go through a second teenage crisis. Like Seat with Cupra, Skoda is in the game. The two most accessible brands of the group may share the same parts as Audi and Volkswagen, but their integration into the New World of electric mobility is more difficult: they need to rejuvenate their image.
Skoda will do it differently than Seat with Cupra, while it will continue to operate under the same name. But its last 30 years under the Volkswagen era are over and it’s time for a change of logo. Farewell to the famous arrow, make way for something more modern and trendy in the automotive world, which will be accompanied by a style seen on the Vision 7S concept last year.
One element among many others in a new roadmap which can be summarized in 5 points:
- Rejuvenate the brand without changing its DNA
- Release 4 new electric models with limited resources
- Restructurer Mladá Boleslav
- Reinventing the combustion engine (and continuing to produce them)
- Managing international expansion in an unstable world
At least that is what emerges from the intervention of Skoda this evening, in its stronghold of Mladá Boleslav in the Czech Republic. All the members of its management organized an international event to come back to each point, by exchanging a few marketing speeches against a visit to the assembly lines to the journalists present on site.
Rather than concepts, Skoda only presented “sculptures” of future electric models © Presse-citron
4 new models
The main part of the presentation of this Tuesday, April 25 was in the (timid) presentation of the four future electric models planned in the calendar. Instead of concepts or early visuals, Skoda showed four “sculptures” focus on the dimensions of the models rather than their appendages. The first model is however planned for next year.
The works du nouvelle Elroq, the all-electric successor to the current Karoq. 4.50 meters long, it represents the so-called “Compact” component, a 5-seater SUV, integrated between a “Small” model and the future 7-seater SUV derived from the Vision 7S concept of the “Space” component (4.90 meters). The latest model planned is the next electric break, naturally integrated into a shutter called “Combi”, with a length of 4.70 meters.
In addition, the only additional announcement concerns the price target for the “Small” model. This entry level which will still borrow the lines of a crossover aim for 25,000 euros, for commercialization in 2025 and a length of 4.10 meters. Its production is not planned in the Czech Republic, but in Spain.
Skoda’s most affordable future model will be around 25,000 euros © Presse-citron
Change the clothes, not the DNA
The Skoda’s new logo has already been announced, but we did not know the details of its schedule until now. In the fall, the various restylings planned for the current range will transform their current 3D logo into a 2D format, more in tune with the times. Then the switch to the new logo and the new light signature will arrive next year (on the new Elroq).
The change may seem simple, but it turns out to be rather the result of a surgical operation for Skoda’s marketing managers. And his presentation explained with tweezers. Skoda must rejuvenate, but its objective and target customers must not change. Who is she ? Families, definitely.
Nothing new then, except that… The slogan “Simply Clever” from the advertisements disappears, but “not in our heart, it’s just a slogan that we keep to ourselves”explained marketing communications manager Meredith Kelly before adding: “we are a more accessible brand in the group, but that does not mean that we are cheap”. This Tuesday, April 25, the brand’s new identity opted for a fresher and more enthusiastic “Let’s Explore” as the new slogan.
Why do you have to justify yourself so much, when the entire automotive industry follows the same logic? Because the Volkswagen group must be able to differentiate its brands, but the rise of the electric car and the new production models no longer allow entities of the same group to be separated on a technical level. SO today, everything goes through communication and marketingas for smartphone brands.
Meredith Kelly, © Presse-citron
Remain the guarantor of the gasoline engine
Far from Mladá Boleslav, in Germany, the headquarters of the Volkswagen group has given its verdict on the future of the production of internal combustion engines. With the arrival of the new Euro 7 European standard, it will once again be more difficult to produce gasoline engines that are homologated and Volkswagen has just entrusted the task to Skoda. The production lines have left the stronghold for another factory in the country, but will now be used by all other manufacturers.
Skoda will therefore now be the guarantor of the production of gasoline engines at Volkswagen, but also of its development. The brand seeks to hire 150 new engineers to meet the R&D task. These engines will of course be connected to the hybrid system of the various manufacturers, but will still evolve for many years. Skoda is aiming for a 70% share of electric sales by 2030.
In its stronghold of Mladá Boleslav, Skoda opens the doors of its assembly lines to a group of journalists © Presse-citron
Restructurer Mladá Boleslav
Choosing to announce the new roadmap in its stronghold is reassurance for Skoda, martyred by an international expansion which has made it open factories in India and which must also face the cost of labor and the evolution of professions. A month ago, it was here in Mladá Boleslav that its management sounded the alarm signal: until 3000 jobs are at risk of being lost just by the approach of the future Euro 7 standard, out of the 28,000 Skoda employees at the current site.
Europe, which is still working on its application conditions, has to face resistance from certain manufacturers to employees trained and employed to more labour-intensive production represented by cars equipped with a combustion engine. The arrival of electric models also rhymes with that of new trades.
When visiting the assembly lines, it is easy to notice the presence of teams mainly trained in thermal models allowing hybrid Octavia copies to pass, and other teams doing the opposite with 100% thermal models. This arrangement will eventually disappear and one and the same team will be in charge of the whole assembly, with less personnel in the end.
Mladá Boleslav can still count on taking care of the production de batteries – already more than 500,000 produced today – which remains an activity of tomorrow’s “at home” world. On the other hand, these batteries will tomorrow be sent to other factories for final assembly, such as in Spain where the electric entry-level model is affected – leaving a large part of the brand’s production outside the Czech Republic.
If we take Peugeot as an example (which has factories in Slovakia and Spain), hiring in these future years for Skoda in the Czech Republic should turn to a new profession: that of battery tester. Handling is time-consuming, with checking a 50 kWh battery requiring an hour, and checking a larger battery (75 kWh) up to 90 minutes.
The batteries of the Enyaq iV, here at the Mladá Boleslav plant in the Czech Republic © Presse-citron
Managing international expansion in an unstable world
In front of “the immense growth potential of these markets”, India and Vietnam see the arrival of a Skoda deeply focused on new regions of the globe. Klaus Zellmer, the new boss of Skoda who did not have a minute to give us for an interview, replaced Thomas Schäfer at the head of Skoda almost a year ago for this project.
These new markets are also an opportunity for new production plants, threatening those in China. In December 2022 in Berlin, the new boss Klaus Zellmer responded in an interview with the weekly automobile week that he was thinking about withdrawing from the country where a joint venture with a Chinese partner now takes care of the market.
“If we want to focus our efforts, it is worth studying all the scenarios and then deciding”, he announced, planning a definitive answer this year. This has not yet been taken. In question certainly: BMW, which managed to negotiate with the authorities to own the entirety of the shares of the production site.
For other manufacturers, such as Skoda or Tesla, the obligation to have to go through a joint venture nibbles away a significant part of the revenue, nothing very sustainable to make the billions invested in global expansion profitable. Investment in electromobility being already calculated at 5.6 billion euros until 2027 according to the latest figures from Skoda.
