Although the market has yet to really take to the idea of an electric car, the best in the business at big booted haulers, Skoda, will be keeping its Combis alive in the world of battery power.
That long-term plan has been previewed with the Vision O Concept, a car that will eventually hit the road in a more toned-down form. However, with dimensions and a boot size sitting between the Octavia and Superb, it hasn’t been entirely clear which car that could be – and it seems possible it will replace both as we know them.
Skoda Vision O, front
Speaking with Car Throttle at the Vision O’s premiere at the Munich Motor Show, Johannes Neft, head of Skoda’s technical development, suggested one could make way when asked if there’s space for electric versions of both to exist.
“This is not decided yet; we have to check that. We are still working in both directions”, said Neft, “It depends a little bit on which size we want this car. You know, each car normally grows a little bit with each generation, and if you grow the Octavia, you’re getting very close to the Superb.”
Pushed further on if the Vision O’s middling dimensions were a deliberate decision, Neft added: “It will depend in the future on the sizes of the platforms as well. As you know, Volkswagen will always have scalable platforms in different lengths, and we have to decide on which of these we’ll put the car on.”
Skoda Vision O, rear
So far, the wider Volkswagen Group has had two cracks at an electric estate car. First came the VW ID7 Tourer followed by the recent arrival of the Audi A6 E-Tron, curiously each using separate platforms – MEB for the former, and PPE for the latter. It’s expected that the next generation of whichever car will follow the existing Octavia will use the new SSP platform, however.
Read the full article here