Skoda is planning a budget saloon to go head to head with Renault's Dacia brand targeted at emerging eastern european countries. According to Volkswagen group, budget brand Dacia has seen strong sales growth in the past few months under pan-European scrappage schemes so the folks at Volkswagen is keen to cover the gap between Skoda and Dacia as part of its ‘alignment’ strategy.
The new Skoda is set to take the place of the original Octavia which is still sold in some emerging markets. Skoda further added that it will be a similar size to that car thus making it smaller than the current Octavia. I personally feel that the greatest rival to this car will be the recently launched Renault Fluence which I can safely say brought 'budget saloon' to the next level. Speaking to Autocar, Skoda’s CEO Reinhard Jung said the model would be sold in Western Europe in order to bridge the gap between the current Fabia and Octavia, which he described as “too big.”
Source : Autocar
