Romania is once again at a disadvantage: where the new Skoda factory opens

Skoda has added a battery pack production line to its factory in Mlada Boleslav. The brand also hopes to produce battery cells.

Skoda is confident that its parent group Volkswagen will make a decision on the fourth largest battery factory in Europe by 2023 at the latest, said the brand’s head of production and logistics, Michael Oeljeklaus.

In October, VW said it intends to decide in the first half of 2022 on the location of a planned battery cell plant in Eastern Europe, which would be the fourth according to its plan to build six such locations in Europe by at the end of the decade.

“The decision will be made in Wolfsburg, Germany,” Oeljeklaus said.

“We hope and trust that this decision will be taken at the end of the autumn, maybe next year at the latest.… We hope that VW will decide in favor of the Czech Republic.”

Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic are all in the running for the Eastern European battery plant, which will open in 2027, VW said.

Battery pack production line

Skoda has added a battery production line to its Mlada Boleslav plant in the Czech Republic.

The line will assemble battery systems for Skoda, VW, Audi and Seat electric cars based on the VW Group’s MEB platform.

Skoda will launch “at least” three all-electric cars that will be smaller and cheaper than its Enyaq compact SUV by 2030, said brand CEO Thomas Schaefer.

Annual production will start at 250,000 systems, reaching 380,000 by 2023, Skoda said in a statement.

The smallest battery pack with eight 24-cell batteries has a capacity of 55 kilowatt-hours, and the average version with nine modules stores 62 kWh.

The largest battery with 12 modules has a capacity of 82 kWh.