Skoda

History

Václav Laurin and Václav Klement opened a bicycle workshop in Mladá Boleslav in 1895 and sold their machines under the Slavia name; motorcycles followed in 1899 and the first car, the Voiturette A, in 1905. In 1925 Laurin & Klement merged into the Pilsen engineering group Skoda, and the cars have carried the Skoda name ever since. That makes it one of the oldest continuously operating automobile manufacturers in the world. Volkswagen took a stake after the Velvet Revolution in 1991 and acquired the company outright in 2000; Mladá Boleslav is still the headquarters.

EV strategy

In 2023 Skoda announced it would expand its electric range to six models by 2026. Five of them are here: the Enyaq and Enyaq Coupé, the Elroq, the Epiq built in Pamplona, and the Peaq since August 2026. The electric estate is missing; Skoda moved it to 2027 or 2028. Enyaq, Enyaq Coupé, Elroq and Peaq roll off the line in Mladá Boleslav, alongside the combustion Octavia Combi. Skoda combines Czech engineering heritage with modern EV technology.

Good to know

• The Skoda Enyaq iV was introduced in 2020 and is the first Volkswagen Group MEB vehicle produced in the Czech Republic.
• It all started with a rejected warranty claim: bookseller Václav Klement sent his bicycle in for repair in 1894 and was turned away, which gave him the idea of building bicycles himself. They were named Slavia, after a Slavonic goddess.
• A Laurin & Klement type E ran on electric drive as early as 1908: electrical pioneer František Křižík replaced its gearbox with an electric motor fed by a petrol engine.
• The Enyaq iV Founders Edition was limited to 1,895 cars, a nod to the founding year 1895.