Skoda cars have been imported into Vietnam from the Czech Republic and will go on sale here in September, according to Skoda’s Vietnamese partner TC Motor.
The imported models include the CUV Karoq in the C-segment and the SUV Kodiaq in the D-segment, which will compete with Hyundai Tucson, Kia Sportage, Mazda CX-5, Honda CR-V, Kia Sorento, Hyundai Santa Fe, Mazda CX-8, and Toyota Fortuner, said TC Motor, a distributor and assembler of South Korean Hyundai vehicles.
The 7-seat Kodiaq has gasoline and diesel engine versions and costs some US$52,870 on the European market.
The Karoq also includes gasoline and diesel engine versions and has a list price of some $31,390 in Germany and around $33,000 in China.
TC Motor will sell Skoda cars imported from Europe and then vehicles assembled in Vietnam.
In late February Skoda and TC Motor began building a plant with an annual capacity of 120,000 Skoda cars at Viet Hung Industrial Park in the northern province of Quang Ninh.
Vietnam is the first Southeast Asian country in which Skoda has put up a factory, from which it also plans to export vehicles to other countries in the region.
Skoda has three plants in the Czech Republic and facilities in China, Russia, Slovakia, India and Ukraine.
The company sold 731,300 vehicles in some 100 markets around the world, with Germany, the Czech Republic, India, the UK, and Poland being the biggest.
In 2021, it sold nearly 900,000 cars in the markets with Germany and Russia being the biggest.