Skoda planning bigger SUV

[team_v]

Czech brand wants to expand its presence in the Australian market, both physically and in terms of sales.

Skoda boss Winfried Vahland says the company is seriously considering building a large SUV.

Speaking to Australian media at the international launch of the Citigo small car in Portugal overnight Vahland denied the project was already under development but hinted it was likely to be given the green light by the end of 2012.

"We have one under thinking," Vahland said.

Advertisement: Story continues below Quizzed on where it would sit in the line-up and against which cars it would compete, he said it would be bigger than both the Skoda Yeti and Volkswagen Tiguan, and possibly be available with a seven-seat option.

"Skoda's positioning is always between the segments," he said. "It would be bigger than Tiguan."

Vahland has set the goal of selling 1.5 million Skodas per year by 2018. Last year the Volkswagen-owned brand sold almost 900,000 new cars.

He said he would like to sell more than 10,000 cars in Australia in the near future and is confident the local operation can get there from last year's result of 3501.

"We are very serious about Australia," Vahland said.

He said Skoda planned to compete on quality and practicality, not just price, in its battle with the rest of the market and parent brand Volkswagen.

A key model is Skoda's growth is the new Rapid small car due in 2013, which is all-but-confirmed to carry that name; a revival of a Skoda from the 1940s.

So basically just a reshelled Touareg?

[woofy]

I've been expecting a toured and as long as the price is reasonable would have bought one had it existed last year.

[team_v]

I've been expecting a toured and as long as the price is reasonable would have bought one had it existed last year.

Skoda's pricing strategy for all other models has basically undercut VW by about 2k so if they want to do well with this model they need to consider a bit more of a discount.

[K1W1]

So basically just a reshelled Touareg?

Why not. The platform exists in the VW group and the development costs will have been amortised across VW/Porsche/Audi so Skoda can pick it up cheaply throw a box onto the chassis load it with some seats and controls and claim it's "all new" with little or no development costs. That way Skoda Australia will be able to gouge the price up to the absolute maximum they think that they can get away with and ensure that the managements ongoing salary bonuses are kept intact.

[brad]

Skoda's pricing strategy for all other models has basically undercut VW by about 2k so if they want to do well with this model they need to consider a bit more of a discount.

Not totally right. There's been some weird pricing on Superb compared to Passat. Yeti also.

"We are very serious about Australia," Vahland said.

Maybe he should let the Australian management team know that. Give them a kick up the khyber.

[phaeton]

The 7 seater will not be derived from the Q7/Cayenne/Touareg platform, instead it will be built upon the new MQB which covers from Polo to CC and everything in between.

VW America are also developing a 7 seater SUV - I'm expecting Shanghai-VW & Skoda to also partner in the development of the new 7 seat SUV which will target Kluger & Territory etc.