Michael Oeljeklaus, ŠKODA AUTO Board Member for Production and Logistics, emphasizes: “The automotive industry is by far the most important economic sector for the Czech Republic. It contributes 9 percent to the Czech Republic’s gross domestic product. The automotive industry accounted for around 25 percent of all Czech exports in 2018. We are proud of the fact that the ŠKODA brand is one of the country’s economic pillars and almost two-thirds of all cars produced in the Czech Republic rolled off our production lines last year.”
Bohdan Wojnar, ŠKODA AUTO Board Member for Human Resources, adds: “The production record is a credit to our employees’ skills and flexibility at the Czech sites. Their outstanding performance on a daily basis at the Mladá Boleslav and Kvasiny factories and the Vrchlabí component factory as well as the productive talks with our social partner make it possible for our company to succeed.”
A total of 886,100 vehicles left the car manufacturer’s Czech plants in 2018. ŠKODA AUTO exceeded the previous year’s strong result by 3.3% (2017: 858,100 vehicles). ŠKODA produces the brand’s best-selling model, the OCTAVIA, in Mladá Boleslav. 258,000 units in the model series were built at this plant in 2018. In addition to the compact model, the KAROQ, FABIA and RAPID models are produced at the main factory. The car manufacturer produces the ŠKODA SUPERB and the SUV models KODIAQ and KAROQ in Kvasiny. In May 2018, ŠKODA expanded its production site in the Hradec Králové region to include a multifunctional competence centre costing 13.5 million euros. This year, the series production of the ŠKODA SUPERB with plug-in hybrid drive will be launched at this location.
At Vrchlabí, the company’s state-of-the-art component plant, the manufacturer produced in 2018 around 538,760 units of the modern automatic transmission DQ 200, which is used in numerous vehicles of the Volkswagen Group. Additional components are produced in Mladá Boleslav as well. Besides the 602,970 MQ 200 and MQ / SQ 100 transmissions, employees at the company’s headquarters built 584,880 engines last year.
As one of the largest employers in the country, ŠKODA AUTO also invests in regional infrastructure projects at its production sites in order to increase the attractiveness of the respective regions. For example, the car manufacturer has established an endowment fund for Mladá Boleslav, providing it with initial capital of 30 million euros. This money is available for projects aimed at strengthening the Mladá Boleslav region. ŠKODA AUTO works closely with partners from politics, public administration and civil society.
ŠKODA AUTO launches electromobility in 2019
The Czech automobile manufacturer has set the course for a successful future by launching the largest investment programme in ŠKODA AUTO’s history as part of Strategy 2025: two billion euros are to be invested in the development of electric vehicles and new mobility services. The battery-powered version of the ŠKODA CITIGO and the ŠKODA SUPERB with plug-in hybrid drive will be launched this year. The production version of the ŠKODA VISION E battery-powered concept study will follow in 2020.
