On Wednesday, January 19, almost three hundred unfinished cars produced this year parked on the car’s parking areas due to a lack of semiconductors – chips. Most often in Lysá nad Labem, according to car spokeswoman Martina Špittová. “We are doing our utmost to eliminate the number of incomplete cars, which will depend on the impact of the omikron variant on supply chains in the first half of this year,” the spokeswoman said.
By the end of this week, the “fleet” of Škoda cars produced and decommissioned this year is to grow to a thousand and continue to grow. “We estimate that we will shut down 2.5 thousand cars by the end of January. The Achilles heel is the control unit of the parking equipment for Enyaq electric cars, which we are now shutting down a lot, more than we would like, ”says Jaroslav Povšík, Chairman of the Škoda Auto Corporate Council. He added that it is necessary to continuously recharge parked electric cars so that the voltage in the flashlights does not drop and the customer then has no problem starting a new car.
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In the critical phases of last year, almost 50,000 unfinished Škoda cars accumulated on the parking areas. At the end of the year, they gradually decreased, and Škoda is successfully completing the last cars produced last year these days. “All that was left was to solve some minor scratches,” says trade unionist Povšík. Neither he nor the carmaker’s management can estimate at this time how large the “fleet” of parked cars will be this year.
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The carmaker has previously stated that it no longer produces “stationary” cars – those that had to transport trucks to the parking areas and back to the races. There will be fewer such cars in the area, but at the same time production will also decrease. “We did not produce the first week of January. Then we drove off, but had to park three hundred cars. We canceled the sixth shift, extended the breaks to reduce production and keep the staff, “says Povšík, adding that Škoda will not produce 2.5 thousand cars because of this in January alone.
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In the whole of last year, Škoda Auto did not produce up to three hundred thousand cars. According to Povšík, this year the carmaker also does not manufacture engines or gearboxes that it would normally sell to the parent company Volkswagen, for example to the Bratislava plant.
However, key chip deliveries should stabilize, especially in the second half of this year, said Martin Jahn, a member of the car company’s board of directors, in the new E15 Business Elite program. “I believe that waiting times for our cars will be reduced and that more will be produced. The start may be at a slower pace, but we are convinced that from the second quarter of this year we will drive again at maximum capacity, “said Jahn.
Last year, Škoda’s global sales fell by 126,600 cars to 878,200 cars. It wants to maintain a third of the market on the Czech market this year and sell about two thousand new cars more than last year, ie about 73,000 cars. This year, it will launch, among other things, the Enyaq Coupe iV electric car or another level of Fabia – Monte Carlo. The Karoq SUV is also to be modernized.
As many as 50,000 unfinished Škoda cars parked on parking lots last year:
