► Skoda confirms no small EV
► Boss rules out Czech ID.1
► Car maker posts £1.9bn profit
The boss of Skoda has ruled out a Czech version of Volkswagen’s upcoming ID.1 electric city car, saying that the company will instead extend the lifecycle of its existing smaller, cheaper combustion cars to appeal to customers who are not yet sure about plugging in.
It’s the latest sign that car makers are hedging their bets on how quickly motorists are wanting to adopt battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and dashes hopes of a new VW Up/Skoda Citigo/Seat Mii trio of small, affordable runabouts.
Klaus Zellmer, CEO of Skoda Auto, told CAR magazine: ‘Our colleagues from VW have just introduced the ID. Every1. We have decided not to be part of that segment. We believe within the Volkswagen Group that VW will conquer that part of the market. At the same time we decided to extend the lifecycle of Fabia, Scala and Kamiq until the end of this decade.
‘The Fabia starts below €20,000 (£17,000) and we will introduce a mild hybrid version of it, which is especially important for Italy. We are confident that as a core brand group we have the right strategy to offer choice to our customers.’
No Skoda electric city car – but there’ll be a small electric crossover: the Epiq
Skoda may not be plunging into the mainstream small electric car segment just yet, but it is intending to leverage the Volkswagen MEB Small architecture, the platform underpinning the group’s most compact electric cars, for its new Epiq compact crossover EV (below).
The circa-£22k Skoda Epiq will be introduced in 2026 and Zellmer predicted that it would quickly become the company’s biggest selling EV. ‘Epiq has to be the biggest sales volume in our battery electric vehicle segment. Market segments are like pyramids. The top of the pyramid is the most expensive, the bottom is the least expensive. The shape that you get is the volume potential. The further down you go the price ladder, the more potential you have in the pyramid and that’s why the Epiq has to by definition outsell Elroq and Enyaq.’
Skoda’s 2024 financial results
Zellmer was speaking as Skoda announced its annual results today, posting record turnover of €27.8 billion (£23.3bn) in 2024 – its highest sales revenue in history. That generated an operating profit of €2.3bn (£1.9bn), giving a margin of 8.3%, not to be sniffed at in the volume sector.
These are interesting figures, since the total sales volume of cars stood at 926,000, up 7% on the previous year – but still trailing significantly the 1.25 million sales posted in 2018. It proves that Skoda’s strategy of moving upmarket, selling fewer cars but at higher prices is bearing fruit.
Which might just explain why the logic of not launching a spiritual successor to the Citigo in electric guise might just be the right commercial decision.