2024-02-14 05:56:36
Skoda hopes to launch a small city crossover priced around €20,000 within two years, which will be produced in India. The trio of the concern – Cupra, Volkswagen and Skoda, plan to assemble low-cost cars, but the current models, which will be based on the Cupra Raval and Volkswagen ID.2all concepts, will cost around 25,000 euros, while the Czech company’s should have 5 thousand euros cheaper.
Skoda boss Klaus Zellmer has admitted that work is underway on an electric car with a price tag of around €20,000. In the case of the Czech brand, it should be a small SUV not only for less developed markets. In order for Skoda to reduce the selling price, it will have to move its production to cheaper destinations. In this case, India, which has a huge human potential. But even more important are the technologies used.
According to Zellmer, the battery accounts for up to 40% of the cost of an electric car. “And if you can cut that number in half, which I think should be doable, you’ll get to a similar price point to internal combustion cars,” the manager believes.
The head of Skoda reminds that not only they are currently focusing mainly on NMC cells (nickel-manganese-cobalt), which offer sufficient energy density for relatively decent money. However, LFP technology (lithium-iron-phosphate cells) is rapidly coming to the fore, which is characterized by a very low cost, but at the same time has a lower energy density. However, this should not be an obstacle in urban electric cars.
Skoda engineers want to solve the problem of insufficient range by stacking one cell on top of another, which would provide sufficient capacity with the reasonable battery sizes required for a small car.