Category: Skoda

Skoda staff agency accused of exploiting Polish contract workers

The Prague Post has reported that an agency used by Skoda to supply workers discriminated against temporary workers it had hired from Poland.
The staff agency, Zetka Auto gave Polish employees lower salaries than the lowest wages given to Skoda workers. The company waited two months to give them their first pay cheques, then deducted non-existent debts from their wages. Unlike their Czech colleagues, the Polish employees were not given work clothing or protective equipment, and were encouraged to work 16-hour shifts.
Due to a shortage of local workforce, the carmaker has been obliged to use staff agencies. Agency workers account for around 4,000 of Skoda’s 27,700-strong workforce. The carmaker will remove the discrimination towards Polish workers.
February 17, 2008
New photos of the Skoda Superb

After a first picture released last November, Skoda has unveiled new details about the next-generation Superb saloon due to be unveiled at the next Geneva motor show.

The Superb shares its inner structure, powertrains and suspension layout with the Volkswagen Passat, but has unique exterior and interior styling, and chassis tuning. Its wheelbase is 70mm longer than the Passat, and the car is 50 mm longer and 40mm narrower respectively. The superb will be available with three petrol engines and two diesel units. The entry level engine will have an output of 105bhp while the topping unit will pump out 260bhp.

The Superb will feature new technologies unseen on Skoda models: adaptive “look-round-corner” headlamps, a new electronic air conditioning system and an automatic parking assistant system.
January 10, 2008
New young head of design for Skoda
The head of design at Skoda, Jens Manske will leave the Czech car maker to move the VW Group Design Department on 1 February, 2008 where his future assignment remains unknown. Under his leadership, Skoda design team styled the new Superb and some future models. He will be succeeded by a young designer Jozef Kaban.
Born in Slovakia in 1973, he graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts & Design in Bratislava with a degree in Product And Industrial Design. He was discovered by Hartmut Warkuss during a design contest organised by Skoda and was offered a job as a Junior/Assistant Designer, later as an Exterior Designer. in 1997 he received a Master of Art at the Royal College of Art and joined Volkswagen. He designed the exterior styling of the 1999 EB 18.4 “Veyron“ concept car and worked on various models until 2003 when Hartmut Warkuss retired. Jozef Kaban moved to Ingolstadt where he worked on several projects before becoming Head of the AUDI AG Exterior Design Centre.
December 12, 2007
First official photo of the new Skoda Superb

Here is the first official picture of the new Skoda Superb and do not expect to see a Volkswagen Passat clone. Despite sharing its underpinnings with the German car, the new Superb has its own exterior and interior styling.
Unlike the outgoing model, the new-generation is a four-door hatchback and is intended to take on established saloon rivals such as the Ford Mondeo and the future Vauxhall Insignia. Its exterior styling features the company’s front fascia with a bold grille and sculpted headlights while the rear end will look like a Saab’s. The interior will be differentiated from the Passat thanks to new unique dials and climate controls.
The Superb will be available with a choice of four petrol engines, the 138bhp 1.4-litre TSI, the 158bhp 1.8-litre T-FSI, the 197bhp 2.0-litre T-FSI . There will also be the traditional TDI engine range. The topping engine will be the 300bhp 3.6-litre V6 unit already seen in the Passat R36.
Skoda will unveil the Superb at the next Geneva Motor Show.
December 11, 2007
Martin Winterkorn plans to stay CEO until 2018

In a recent interview Volkswagen group CEO Martin Winterkorn said that he planned to stay until the 2018 goal has been reached. In other words, he will leave his position only if Volkswagen catches up with Toyota or if the board fires him. He also said that he wants VW in 2010 to be where Toyota is today. It means that the group will have to sell 3.3 million more cars by 2010. Quite a challenge for the group!
In order to achieve such an impressive target, Martin Winterkorn says the company will focus on improving its productivity by 10%. He revealed that each Toyota vehicle has a cost advantage of €3,000/2,155-4,000€/£2,875 over Volkswagen. Martin Winterkorn forgets to mention that the minimum wage -700€/£503 is lower in Japan than in Germany. it is also rumoured that Toyota employs Chinese and Korean workers who don’t require the Japanese company to provide health insurance. Beyond the Toyota production system, the Japanse social system might also help Toyota to build car at a lesser cost.
Vokswagen CEO also said that German design and perfectionism will make the difference in overcoming Toyota. It is true that Toyota fails mainly on the design side as almost all Toyota cars features a dull styling, but Volkswagen models are not better, except for Audi.
Volkswagen also plans to unveil more than 20 new models over the next three years and will invest £20 billion between 2008 and 2010 in product development and manufacturing.
December 11, 2007
VW Group to develop four new platforms

In an interview given to Automotive News Europe, VW brand board member for development, Dr. Ulrich Hackenberg revealed that Volkswagen group will release four new platforms in the coming years in order to achieve the 2018 target. With those new platforms, the German carmaker expects to reduce its cost by 40% thanks to components shared between the platforms and development times by one year.
The most important platform will be the MQB which will underpin up to 6 million vehicles every year. The platform will be flexible enough to equip a large range of vehicles from small cars to upper-premium models. According to some insiders, the MQB platform will be used as in many as 20 different models.
The second platform, dubbed MHB, will be featured by the new VW’s rear-engine models, which will be sold over the world as a low cost model. Once again, one does expect to see the platform underpinning a few million vehicles. At the opposite of the range, the luxury models will have their own platform already used by the Audi A4 and A5. Dubbed MLB, it features a longitudinally mounted engine for front-drive and all-wheel-drive transmissions. The next A6 and A8 models will use the MLB platform. The future Phaeton and Bentley models will likely use the same underpinnings.
Finally, a fourth platform will be devoted to sports cars and will be used by the future Lamborghini models and the Audi R8.
With this new platform range, Volkswagen plans to increase sales from 5.7 million vehicles in 2006 to 10 million cars in 2018.
November 27, 2007
Skoda Superb at the next Geneva Motor Show

Skoda will unveil the next-generation Superb model at the 2008 Geneva Motor Show. With this new flagship, the Volkswagen subsidiary wants to compete with Volvo and this time it will not repeat the mistake made with the current model. The future Superb will not be a Passat with a facelift, but rather a true original model. Indeed, it has been developed from the very beginning as a completely new vehicle.

Thanks to pictures revealed by the Czech press a few months ago, the Superb’s design is known. The car will feature a conservative design that will mix two opposite worlds: practicality and luxury. Practically comes in the form of a hatchback with a large boot while luxury is offered via a large grill and an upmarket design.
On the inside, the next Superb will also feature an upmarket cabin finished in soft-touch plastics. In order to avoid a straight comparison with the Passat, the future flagship will feature unique dials and climate controls.
The next Skoda Superb is a big move for Skoda. The current model was a favourite choice for taxis thanks to its roominess and low price tag. Thanks to its upmarket treatment, the next model might be a threat for Volvo, but also for other carmakers like Ford, Renault, Citroën, Peugoet and Volkswagen.
November 8, 2007