Skoda Enyaq Forum

What I don't understand is why neither my dealer or skoda chat can tell me when I'll get my car. Surely, the factory must know when their chip supplier has allocated them wafer batch manufacturing slots and the lead time for the chips will be fairly well known. It can't be that difficult to predict delivery dates. I work in similar chip manufacturing and we have systems to track the products in production. Using standard lead times, the system can predict output dates very easily. Skoda (and their suppliers) will have an MES system that can do this too. The least they can do is tell us the best case output date. I am spending a large amount on a product. I should know when I expect to get it. Very, very frustrating as I ordered mid June and have been told it has been built but parked in a compound waiting to be finished off.

There is a global shortage of semiconductors affecting the whole industry as supply chains are broken. So not sure they can predict that much currently in a dysfunctional market. They will get the microchips when they get them.

My Skoda will be produced in two weeks time and then it will be waiting for the last bits and pieces as well. So crossing my fingers but understand that it is out of their hands at the moment.

Also, as has been pointed out not a few times, the car industry is a very minor user of chips, from the point of view of the chip companies.

So they have far less clout than computer, tablet and phone manufacturers who are buying many times the amount of components.

The supply lines for all kinds of things were messed up by COVID measures, so it could well be that Skoda are waiting for assembled modules from Bosch, and Bosch are waiting for populated circuit boards from their supplier, who in turn are waiting for particular semiconductors from TSMC, who are waiting for supplies of some chemicals from one of their suppliers. And because of the bottleneck in component supply to the pcb company has a big backlog of pcbs to assemble, so the ones for Bosch might be behind someone else's. Bosch may have a container load of assembled pcbs, but they don't have the plastic cases for them to go into because the company that supplies them has a big backlog due to its workers trying to catch up with the lost production days over the last year and a half.

The whole just-in-time supply chain model works very well when all the links are working well and can manage their buffer stocks and delivery schedules. But it's broken in so many places along the line that it will take a while until all parts are working properly again, and the various companies can make reasonable predictions of when they'll be able to complete their product.

Yes, it would be nice to go into a showroom, order a car and have it delivered in a month or so. But that's not how things work in 2021. It's the same in other industries too, I've been quoted 12-18 months for a particular piece of server hardware, because HPE do not have one in stock anywhere in Europe, and they do not know when they'll get one. Normally this hardware would be an off the shelf stock item, arriving next day.

Seems Skoda are now going to be shutting down and laying off workers for a week too: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos- ... 4vtwCwUefc

So yes, this is why they cannot give a fixed, known build date. They've been trying very hard to keep the factory open, but they've got to the stage where it's just not possible to build anything until their suppliers catch up a bit.

This posted over on the Kodiaq Forum by Kenny R:
https://www.kodiaqforums.co.uk/viewtopi ... &start=130

I think I'm right in saying that the last shut down was for all Skoda models apart from the Enyaq (all models) and certain models of the Octavia, however this time it looks like a full factory shut down, so even Enyaq affected.

Coming round to the idea of just keeping my Kodiaq for a good few years as I've got to decide in the next 6 months what I'm going to do. Current value of my Kodiaq from WBAC = £29,500, finance settlement = £21,500.

What would others do? Try to realize the £8k equity by ordering a new car that could take 6+ months to arrive or stick with what I've got and accept that it's in effect a very cheap second hand car to purchase for well below market value? I also know the service history and that there's nowt wrong with it. And I've already paid for the next service which will not be until next summer. Also there's £750 finance contribution on a new Enyaq or £2750 contribution for another Kodiaq to consider...

Decisions, decisions...

scratch113 wrote: ↑Thu Sep 16, 2021 6:02 pm This posted over on the Kodiaq Forum by Kenny R:
https://www.kodiaqforums.co.uk/viewtopi ... &start=130

I think I'm right in saying that the last shut down was for all Skoda models apart from the Enyaq (all models) and certain models of the Octavia, however this time it looks like a full factory shut down, so even Enyaq affected.

Coming round to the idea of just keeping my Kodiaq for a good few years as I've got to decide in the next 6 months what I'm going to do. Current value of my Kodiaq from WBAC = £29,500, finance settlement = £21,500.

What would others do? Try to realize the £8k equity by ordering a new car that could take 6+ months to arrive or stick with what I've got and accept that it's in effect a very cheap second hand car to purchase for well below market value? I also know the service history and that there's nowt wrong with it. And I've already paid for the next service which will not be until next summer. Also there's £750 finance contribution on a new Enyaq or £2750 contribution for another Kodiaq to consider...

Decisions, decisions...

We have ordered and are willing to wait due being guaranteed the valuation of the car as our deposit no matter the market value when the Enyaq arrives.

If your in no rush spec it and order it as god knows what the car values will be like in the next year.

I’m in no rush, so happy to keep driving my Outlander PHEV for as long as it takes. I wasn’t expecting delivery before December anyway. Hasn’t cost me anything (other than a returnable deposit), and there’s nothing else I can buy that’ll do what I’d like anyway.

My car just completed it's 5th week in build. The dealer says "there is no issue with the building of the car, they are just waiting for the shipment of the chips".

My optimistic thought about the week long shutdown:

Currently they are building cars to almost-completion and then parking them until the missing parts arrive. If they're shutting down the production line, that possibly indicates one of two things:

1. They are running out of space to park new cars, so they shutdown the main production line but continue trying to complete parked cars to free up space.

2. They are expecting a batch of missing parts to arrive for the parked cars, so they want to shift resources/people from the main production line to focus on the parked cars to get them out of the door as fast as possible.

I can hope, anyway.

They are shutting down the plant purely for cashflow reasons. Skoda have said in the press that they can have the possibility of almost unlimited space but limit it to ~50-55k because any more will mean they have too much money tied up in cars they can't (yet) sell. They prefer to keep shifts going, and while they can keep the numbers of incomplete cars lower than 50k, they will keep the shifts but if it looks like they will breach 50k incomplete cars, they will stop shifts.

Also read that while shifts are stopped, incomplete cars can still be finished as chips will keep on arriving. They planned to clear something like 20k cars during their summer shutdown which I think ended up running for neigh on 3 weeks? Adding 3 days to a shutdown of 2 days seems sensible if they can get guys in for overtime to keep completing cars waiting on chips.