2020 is dominated by the Volkswagen Group – in addition to corona – software problems. After the much-discussed ID.3, the new middle class cars such as the Golf and Octavia also had to believe it. According to Czech media, Skoda employees are critical: “The Octavia was not sufficiently prepared for series production.”
According to a Skoda unionist, the employees are nervous and angry. They let this know in a letter, according to the Czech weekly Škodovácký Odborář. According to the employees, fixing the software problems in the latest generation of Octavia is a gigantic time-consuming task, which causes considerable delays in the entire process and increases the workload. In previous cars, a software update would take less than five minutes, but now it takes 30 minutes per car before the problem is resolved.
“We have never encountered this,” said the Skoda unionist. “The production readiness of the car is in a very deplorable condition”. According to the employees, the problems will not stop for the time being, because according to them, the upcoming Enyaq iV would also be facing various software problems. “Production has to be shut down for an average of three hours per car to solve the problems,” said the Czechs.
The new Volkswagen Golf, Seat Leon, Audi A3 and Skoda Octavia make a significant leap forward in the technical field, but it is precisely these new gadgets that they destroy at the beginning of their life cycle. In mid-May, Skoda ceased delivery of the Octavia due to problems with the eCall assistance system. Delivery was resumed in June. In August, a recall followed for all Octavia already delivered that were produced between November 21, 2019 and May 11, 2020.
The Czech spokesperson for Skoda did not want to respond to the article from the weekly.