Skoda battles car supply shortage in Australia

Skoda Australia has joined the growing chorus of European car-makers flagging continued supply shortages and standard equipment downgrades amid the global semi-conductor crisis and the war in Ukraine.

At the launch of the 2022 Skoda Kodiaq this week, officials conceded it will be more of the same with stock in Australia as buyers are forced to wait months for their cars to arrive.

Skoda Australia product planning manager Kieran Merrigan echoed recent sentiment from the industry, reiterating the distributor was lobbying head office for as much stock as it can get.

While Volkswagen’s Czech brand was set for a stock reprieve in the first quarter, Merrigan admitted the war in Ukraine had scuttled that.

The Volkswagen Group was among the first car-makers to exit Russia, where it produces crucial wiring harnesses, in protest of Putin’s attack on Ukraine, which has in turn put further pressure on its VW’s manufacturing plants.

“There’s no sugar-coating it: the next couple of months is going to be tight for any European car-maker,” Merrigan said.

“Supply will be tight for the next couple of months, beyond that remains to be seen.

“We’ve got through two lots of floods, fires, COVID and now there’s a war impacting our supply. We actually had a light at the end of the tunnel – February and March production was really strong – and then we were hit with fresh uncertainty [due to the war in Ukraine] and no-one knows what production is going to look like in the short term.”

Merrigan said there was unsold stock of the facelifted Skoda Kodiaq currently en route to Australia, but that is expected to be snapped up quickly.

Like other car-makers, Skoda has been forced to de-specify some standard equipment on certain models in order to get them into Australia.

Naturally, these models are discounted at the point of purchase and customers made aware of the missing equipment, Merrigan said.

“With Kodiaq it depends how specific your needs are. There is unsold stock en route to Australia but is there enough? Definitely not,” he said.

“Kodiaq and Kamiq would be head to head as our best sellers, but in saying that we’ve probably never had enough Kodiaqs – similar to our whole range. Our factories have been sold out for the past eight years.”

It seems no car-maker has been immune to stock shortages hampering the industry. Even Japanese giant Toyota has had to contend with up to 12-month waiting times for its most popular models.

Merrigan said Skoda Australia had become accustomed to experiencing pent-up demand in Australia, giving the local operation opportunity to focus on the back end of the business.

“It’s been a sustainable growth strategy and it means that rather than simply pushing out cars, we’ve had to concentrate on understanding our customers, finding the right specification of car and then working on the business model for the back-end aftersales piece,” he said.

Skoda sold 9200 vehicles in 2021, a record year in Australia. Merrigan said volume was forecasted to reach 12,000 vehicles before the full extent of stock shortages took effect.

Join the conversation at 

our Facebook page

Or email us at 

editor@carsales.com.au