Final Word from Thursday, January 13, 2022

The Financial Times wrote last week that Volkswagen has benefited from the semiconductor shortage by being able to prioritize the production of high-end, and more-profitable, Porsche and Audi models. The same can probably be said of Volkswagen's Škoda Auto. The media are full of reports about how Škoda's global sales fell last year by 12.6% and about how the chip shortage is causing production and shifts to be cut back, but is this the full story? Matěj Vondráček of Louda Auto told Právo in mid-Dec. that Škoda is prioritizing production of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids and that the waiting time for an Enyaq iV or Superb iV is only 3-6 months, compared to a year or more for a regular vehicle. The covid crisis is apparently allowing Škoda to move away from fossil fuels at a much faster pace than it could have ever hoped. All it has to do is blame the backlog of orders for its regular cars on Asian suppliers, even if the parts shortage is increasingly of its own making. [ Czech Republic VW semi-conductor computer ]