German-built Skoda Karoq to hit market while brand upgrades Czech plant

花仙子汽车资讯 2024-09-18 160

Skoda Karoq production has extended to Germany in order to meet demand while the company’s flagship MladáBoleslav facility in the Czech Republic is upgraded with a new paint shop.

This means that, for a limited time, some examples of the SkodaYeti successor will be built at the VolkswagenGroup’s Osnabrück factory, where the Volkswagen Tiguan is made.

The site also paints Skoda Fabiasand has assembled the Porsche 718 Cayman since 2017.

Automotive News Europereports that the brand will produce Karoq modelsin Germany into 2019.

A Skoda spokesman told Autocar that the change was made "in order to satisfy the high demand". They said "We have utlised the production capacities within the Volkswagen Group, and from the end of 2018 additional painting and assembly of the Åkoda Karoq will take place at the German Volkswagen location of Osnabrück. The main volume of production remains at our Czech sites in Kvasiny and Mladá Boleslav".

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Last month, CEO Bernhard Maier said during Skoda's annual results conference that customers in some markets had to wait for up to 10 months for their car to be delivered. He said this was too long and could encourage the brand to open another factory.

German-built Skoda Karoq to hit market while brand upgrades Czech plant

The Karoq is a key component in Skoda’s recent sales growth. It was introducedlast year and sits beneath the larger Kodiaq in Skoda’s SUV line-up. Both models have received high demand from buyers, helping Skodagrow its sales in the first quarter of this year by 12% to 316,176 units.

In 2017, the brand expanded its European market share to 4.48%, up from 4.36% the year before. Globally, it grew sales by 6.6% to sell 1.2 million cars.

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Those numbers are forecast to be beaten when a smaller SUV model, based on the recent Vision X concept, makes production at the MladáBoleslav plant. The same factory will also build Skoda’s first electric vehicle, which is due in 2020.

That EV will be part of 10 electrified models planned by Skoda before 2025, of which six will be full EVs and the other fourplug-ins.