Skoda aims to be one of top five European brands by 2030
Czech firm doubles down on expansion and electrification plans, with three new EVs planned by 2030
Skoda has laid out an ambitious plan to become one of the five best-selling car makers in Europe, expand its EV line-up and significantly reduce its fleet emissions by 2030.
Under the Next Level banner, the Czech brand aims to provide "modern accessible mobility with everything you need and surprises you love", through three overarching objectives: expand, explore and engage.
In line with its goal to achieve a pure-EV market share of between 50% and 70% in Europe by 2030, Skoda will introduce three new fully electric models.
It has yet to detail these new cars but has previously hinted that it will follow the 2022 Enyaq Coupé with a compact crossover and is likely to use the Volkswagen Group's upcoming MEB-Lite platform for a small urban EV.
Skoda is working to transform its Czech home market into a dedicated "electromobility hub", wherein its Mladá Boleslav, Kvasiny and Vrchlabí factories will be repurposed as production facilities for EVs and associated components. This process will begin in 2022, when Skoda takes production of EV batteries in house to supply the Enyaq iV.
The firm already produces drive batteries for its Superb and Octavia plug-in hybrids locally, as well as units for several models from other Volkswagen Group brands.
Aside from its European-market goals, the brand wants to become the best-selling European manufacturer in India, Russia and North Africa by 2030 - which has the potential for 1.5 million sales per year. As part of this plan, Skoda is set to offer the Kushaq, its new Indian-market crossover, in other emerging markets.
Together, the strands of the Next Level strategy will help Skoda achieve its objective of reducing fleet emissions by more than 50% compared with 2020 levels by 2030.
From that point, all Skoda vehicles produced in the Czech Republic and India will be net carbon-neutral – an objective already achieved by the firm's Vrchlabí plant.
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