[AMG Power]

The prices at which used diesel Octavias / Jettas are going make them a great bargain. You need to know your onions when you buy one and know how to use them to avoid unnecessary bills. The low purchase cost allows you to spend on spares needed to bring the cars upto scratch.

VW Group’s decision to stop diesels is a business unfriendly decision and part of the reason for the low sales.

The only decision worse than that is to bring in the old Superb at 14 lakhs more than the earlier car with DCC being the only difference.

Skoda will have to take a big bit with this move.

[Noctis]

Title seems quite unfair given this is somewhat of an expected drop after the initial high following the launch of a new product.

The primary problem they are facing is that of a product portfolio: just two volume sellers with a single fuel option. There is only so much a marketing executive can do with this in a highly competitive market like ours.

If Skoda is serious about gaining share in India they would need diesel/hybrid for Kushaq/Slavia, maybe an EV model down the like and considering manufacturing Kodiaq locally or bring another SUV model in the 20-40l range. Else the best they can hope is to be content settling down in a profitable niche like Honda seems to be aiming to.

[samarthnarayan]

Originally Posted by pqr

Skoda’s India story is now turning out to be similar to that of Ford India.

If anything fails further from here, Skoda will be on the path of Ford India.

SO True. Skoda really is dejavu Ford.

How they have screwed up and lost Fabia, Rapid, Yeti, all wonderful cars, but no investments made in their upgradation, and they would have been without competition in the current market, as both Ford and Volkswagen are out of that segment. Ford is out completely.

Skoda, Ford, Volkswagen and Honda, have totally mishandled their Indian lineups.

I can think of at least 10 cars between these 4, that needed upgradation, but they were discontinued instead.

Poor Management.

[PB65]

I feel they just need to change the outside box of the SUVs. The point being Maruti sells the same stuff with a cheap box as Wagonr for 6 Lakhs, and the same stuff with a bigger and premium box as Baleno for 11 lakhs.
Skoda/VW should do the same. Just redesign the exterior of their SUVs and turn them into something with more enhanced presence and size (guys, size really does matter here). They have their role model in their own stable only, the reason Virtus and Slavia sell so good (comparative to their segment) is because of their road presence, in the first place. That's a major draw for their sedan line-up, and it's a more considerable factor in the SUV segment.

[Mach_1590]

Skoda needs a hatchback, get the Fabia with both 1.0L and 1.5L. Will do about 3k units without breaking a sweat "if" priced correctly. Also, bring in Slavia and Kushaq 2.0 with "Skoda quality" interior and let the media spread the word like wildfire. Tata did it with Harrier and tasted success. Launch a 5 seater Kodiaq and call it "Yeti". Easier said than done but will ensure good returns.

[Raghuwire]

Other than Europe, Skoda is a marginal player in almost all the markets they operate in. Even in India they are a marginal player with most Indians not even thinking about the brand. Their presence and reach is mostly limited to 40-50 cities in India.

In such a situation, they are complicating the matters with their confusing naming of cars. I am sure none of my relatives know the difference between kodiaq, karmiq, kushaq. How is T-rock different from Tiguan. Is there a spelling mistake between Tiguan and Taigun. I feel it's an extremely dumb way to name cars. Hyundai has named i10/20/30. So you know for sure that 20 is premium and bigger than 10. Heck, even the graceful grand i10 and mind numbingly ugly Aura, has different names, when the difference is just the boot. A 7 seven seater Harrier was called Safari to make its own brand. Imagine if Tata sold punt(Tiago), punter(Tigor), punch, puncher(Nexon), pointer(Harrier), pointed (Safari) how would you even differentiate! I would never want my Harrier to be confused with a Nexon. Harrier with all its flaws, has a brand pull just with the name, it's a brand. Same cannot be said about the K series of Skoda or the T series of VW. When you are spread across the globe and a fringe player in most markets, making car name a brand is extremely important, giving confusing names just defeats the purpose. I am worried if Fabia or Polo ever come back, they maybe called Katak and Tolo respectively to match the family names. 😃

[volkman10]

More exits from Skoda Auto. Is it an indication that no future holds for the brand, in India?

Rajesh Bhasin exits Skoda Auto, Czech brand without head of sales and marketing again.

Just a few weeks back, marketing head Rahul Pansare had moved out to join Stellantis India and now the head of sales has left too.

Link

[BrakHorseBarhat]

Originally Posted by pqr

Safety and driving dynamics can’t be the only USPs in this segment for Skoda to live on.

As someone who purchased a Taigun GT Plus DSG one week ago, I completely agree that the brands are rather complacent with the features being offered in the cars.

While the driving and safety are great points, if they could step up the features then the Kushaq and Taigun could very well be segment leaders despite the size disadvantage.

The reason I was able to make the decision to buy the Taigun was because we already had a feature-rich car in the house(Hector Plus) so the other car that we purchased was more for enjoyment than anything else. And not everyone will find themselves in such a position where they can compromise just for sheer driving dynamics.

The decision was very difficult personally because while logically speaking I should have gone for some other car that offered more bang for the buck, but my heart was set on VW because of how fun it was to drive. If the taigun had features on top of the driving dynamics then I would have made the decision in a heartbeat.

[Satkaj]

Historically if you observe VW group has been very slow in making decisions. If any were taken ,either kind of a knee jerk or in a way of penalty.

I own Vento TDI 2010 and Superb MK 2 of 2014.

Between these 14 yrs VW had Jetta, now not available. Passat , unavailable now. Virtues alternate to Vento was launched much later till there were re badged Vento’s made available to loyal customers.

Same goes to Skoda. Skoda did make a mark by having good products which unfortunately unable to keep momentum. With their current Superb pricing, again Skoda has become a laughingstock with their loyal’s.

Each time Skoda/VW customers are left without much options either to upgrade or any product reflecting existing outgoing model as an alternative.

On the other hand Japanese and Korean’s always gave options of size/ engines to retain their customers. There customers are not worried about availability of cars/ parts or sudden change in pricing. All these certainly works in their favour.

Though financially group is doing well by remaining profitable, but not capitalising one of the fastest growing market is a big question!

[Sid94]

A features update should do the trick for a year or two. Inclusion A 360-degree camera and 2-zone climate control will go a long way. The VW group cars still look and feel relevant even though they are 3 years old.

A prospective buyer these days is aware of all the minute details, especially if they are buying a VW Group car. I presume these consumers are aware that the current VW group cars are smaller than the direct competition (Creta, Seltos, etc.) and are smaller in width compared to a segment below (Sonet, Nexon, etc.).*

The VW group's strategy must be to appeal to something that is not evident: the engineering, dynamics, build quality, and brand appeal of European makes. They don't have diesel, but consumers are acutely aware that the FE of a 1.5-liter petrol engine is poor in comparison to the competition, but the USP of the VW group is that there are no other cars that appeal to enthusiasts (say, 1% of all buyers in this segment?).*

I read an article where an executive from the group said they don't want to be 'Maruti' in terms of volumes.*

Once the features are competitive, I think both VW and Skoda can convert some buyers from Kia, Hyundai, and Tata and aspire to carve out a 3% market share of 4L car sales per month in the country, which should be around 12k cars per month. This is a good number for the European brand, but going beyond this will only dilute band values and priorities.*

[Small Bot]

Originally Posted by Zinger_Winger

P.S: Whenever I see a Kushaq/Taigun, I feel sad at the road presence of those vehicles. They just look like hatchbacks and not (pseudo)SUV's. VAG probably also need to rework both those models to have a bigger, more butch stance on the road.

This is so true. The Kushaq is definitely a bigger car than my Brezza, but it doesn't look bigger explicitly, leading people to believe it's of a lower segment and therefore heavily overpriced.