“The backlog at Skoda is half the Austrian annual sales”

Max Egger has been head of Skoda Austria for more than 30 years. Now the native of Upper Austria is retiring. The 65-year-old spoke to OÖN about e-mobility, the current delivery problems and the future model policy of the traditional Czech brand.

OÖN: Mr. Egger, you have been the managing director of Skoda Austria, a traditional Czech brand, for more than 30 years. Did you also learn a bit of Czech during this time?

Max Egger: I tried it at the very beginning. But it is almost impossible, namely in such a way that native Czechs can also get along with you.

Is that perhaps a plan for your soon-to-be unrest?

(laughs) Well, so much that I can go to Prague or Krumau and order something to eat and drink there, that’s enough.

Hand on heart: Do you find it difficult to let go?

A year or two ago I would have imagined that it would be harder for me. But now I’m looking forward to the section that’s coming. I notice that it takes more and more energy to keep your condition at the required level.

Do you stay connected to the car even in the pension?

Yes of course. In the past 30 years I have built up so many personal relationships – with dealers, colleagues, companions. There are so many points of contact there. And there’s a lot of connection.

You are leaving the industry at an extremely exciting time – keyword: electrification. How will things continue at Skoda?

E-mobility is the future, we at Skoda have set all the parameters in this direction. We have already shown our dealers our future model this year. The aim is for at least 70 percent of the European market to be electrical by 2030. In Austria it can even be a bit more.

What does this mean for the Skoda model range?

We also showed our dealers the next three steps in e-mobility that will come by 2026: that will be a smaller electric car, then an e-car that will be positioned under the Skoda Enyaq. And finally the Vision 7S, the seven-seater space car. This shows how large the spread of the brand will be in the future. This means that we go much further apart with the model range. Almost every Upper Austrian will find their Skoda model in the future.

Skoda stands for inexpensive, high-quality vehicles. Doesn’t electrification destroy this positioning? Electrification makes cars more expensive.

Two points on this: For more than ten years, the price of the cars at Skoda – on the buyer side – has been constantly rising. We sell 80 percent of all cars in the highest equipment levels. The second is the claim for the brand that we want to serve the entire customer spectrum. However, you will no longer come down in price regions where a Skoda Fabia used to be. But we will get into the numbers with small e-cars – then the price will cross those of the combustion engines.

When will that be?

An electric car could be cheaper than a comparable combustion engine as early as 2025/26.

Will there still be cars under 15,000 euros?

There will no longer be prices below 15,000 euros in the high-quality segment.

Will it then only be possible to get started at 20,000 euros?

You have to aim for the 20,000 point. That would be the focus. Technically, 25,000 euros can already be realized.

One problem at the moment is long delivery times and an enormous backlog. Is there light at the end of the tunnel?

There is always relaxation – and then a new problem arises. For example, we have had a transport problem for months, we don’t bring the cars to the dealers. There are too few truck drivers, there are too few conditioners. And at Skoda we now build semi-finished cars, on average that’s 1,000 vehicles at a time. But there were times when 40,000 to 50,000 cars stood around half-finished.

How big is the backlog at Skoda at the moment?

For us, that’s half the Austrian annual sales.

Do you see the risk of a downturn after clearing the current backlog? The reason could be a reluctance to buy because of inflation and the economically uncertain times.

A slight drop in demand can be seen in Europe. But it’s unclear what the cause is. Is it because people want to keep their money together? Is it inflation? Is it the economic uncertainty? One does not know.

personal

My first car was… “A green Fiat 128 in ‘Schiachgrün’, that’s what we called the pea green back then. It had 55 hp.”

In my garage are… “Three companions: my all-electric Skoda Enyaq, a Skoda Octavia plug-in hybrid which is the main family car, the third car is a Skoda Scala. We only filled up the Octavia twice this year, even though it drives an average of 30 to 40 kilometers every day. Over the year, we have an average consumption of just 0.4 liters per 100 kilometers, which is ideal.”

My absolute favorite car is… “a Skoda 1100 OHC, but there are only two of them. If I had to cheat, I would get a Fiat 500 Abarth from 1957 – the year I was born.”

My life motto is… “It’s not possible, there’s not. And then there is a quote from Albert Einstein, which also hangs on my bulletin board in the office: There are many paths to happiness, but one of them is to stop whining.”

author

Clemens Schuhmann

Editor foreign policy, Weltspiegel

c.schuhmann@nachrichten.at

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