#ExploreŠkoda Podcast

Unfortunately, the number of accidents at railway crossings is constantly increasing. Drivers who ignore warning devices or are not careful enough at unprotected intersections are often to blame. But Škoda Auto has developed an application that warns drivers of an approaching train - and should thus increase safety at crossings.

In most current Škoda models, you can download the Traffication app directly to the
infotainment system. The software evaluates potential dangers using trains' location data, among other things. During this trial period, Škoda collaborates with the train company Leo Express. How accurate is the app? And what other warnings can it provide? Today’s guest on the Simply Clever podcast is Michal Vondra from the EEH department at Škoda Auto.

Škoda broke the GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS™ title for the ‘longest continuous vehicle drift on ice’. Behind the steering wheel of the Mamba Green Škoda Enyaq RS iV on the frozen lake Stortjärnen, located in Krokom, Sweden, was the experienced racer and motoring journalist Richard Meaden, who, by the way, competed in the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in 2007 and 2008. And, in 2011, he set a new world record for a production sedan at Bonneville Speed Week in a Škoda Octavia vRS – a record he held for ten years. Now, in an Enyaq RS iV, he’s officially broken the GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS™ title for the longest continuous vehicle drift on ice after reaching a distance of 7.351 km while drifting, simultaneously setting a new GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS™ title for the ‘longest continuous vehicle drift on ice (electric car)’. And we had the chance to interview Dickie right after one of the attempts. Among other things, he explains how hard it is to make this electric SUV do something its electronic assistance systems usually try to avoid. 

As we enter the new year, you may be considering getting a new car, planning to take a look around a showroom or talking to a dealer. You might even be going through the specifications and looking at photos online. But what if you could explore a car from different angles and even take it for a drive without leaving your home? 

Škoda has already launched a virtual showroom – a website where you can configure your ideal car and see a 3D model of it. We discussed this with the head of the Customer Journey department at Škoda, Eric Boutin, back in November 2021. Now Škoda has taken another step by entering the ‘metaverse’, a virtual world where you can walk around the car and take it for a drive. There’s also an NFT gallery and a virtual island to wander round called Škodaverse. 

Today’s guest on the SIMPLY CLEVER PODCAST is Luca Zicconi from the Customer Journey department at Škoda. 

Luca and his team also partnered with Diego Borgo, a Web3 ambassador, NFT collector, and advisor to Fortune 500 brands regarding the blockchain. 

And with Luca and Diego, we’ll be finding out what exactly the metaverse is and how it can benefit automotive companies and their customers.

ŠKODA presented a new version of its EV - ENYAQ RS iV. We had the chance to drive it in the south of Spain and test new update of ME3 software. We talked with Jaromír Mendl, product marketing manager of ENYAQ family about the development of new ME3 generation of software and its latest updates.

Nowadays, the cars for crash tests are full of sensors. But in 1972 it looked pretty different - the engineers equipped ŠKODA 100 with a steam rocket engine…To mark fifty years of crash tests, ŠKODA has invited journalists to the otherwise inaccessible crash laboratory in Úhelnice near Mladá Boleslav. Roman Minařík, head of the Škoda Auto test centre in Úhelnice, outlines the fascinating history of crash tests.

Data moves the world - especially in urban mobility. The municipalities, or f.e. service providers, are collecting the data and using them to improve their services and the place we live in. What data to collect? And how to use them for urban projects regarding mobility issues and climate change? That was one of the main topics of this year's Prague City Data Congress. And one of the speakers was Fábio Duarte, the principal research scientist at MIT Senseable City Lab.  

Fábio Duarte wants to improve the urban public space with the available data - preferably to eliminate as many cars as possible. With his colleagues, he worked, among other projects, on autonomous robotic boats or the optimization of taxi rides in New York. What data do you need for these solutions? And in what case should you invest in infrastructure that helps you collect the data? That's the topic for today's SIMPLY CLEVER PODCAST, recorded directly on Prague City Data Congress. And the other guest is Jan Charouz, CEO of shared electric scooter platform BeRider. 

Find a parking space, select the zone in the app and pay on your phone. I guess we all know this process pretty well already. But ŠKODA has made it even simpler. In Switzerland, ŠKODA tested the Pay-to-park app in a pilot scheme, allowing you to select and pay for parking using the car’s infotainment system without pulling out your mobile. Plus, thanks to this service, you don’t have to pay for more time than you were actually parked in that zone. After Switzerland, ŠKODA has now launched this app in Germany, Finland, and Belgium, and it’s coming to other countries, including the Czech Republic, soon.
How does it work exactly? What data went into developing it? And how did the pilot scheme in Switzerland go? For this interview, we travelled to the city of Zug, near Zurich, with Tomáš Dražil from ŠKODA AUTO Digilab who was in charge of developing the application. And the other guest is Thushan Bala Marketing Coordinator at ŠKODA – AMAG Group. 

When you look at the provisional rankings of the World Rally Championship in the WRC 2 category, there are three drivers with the ŠKODA FABIA Rally2 EVO – the third generation of the rally FABIA – in the top three positions. And ŠKODA AUTO hopes that the next generation will be just as dominant. 

The FABIA RS Rally2, the fourth generation of this rally version of the popular FABIA, has just finished the homologation process, and we had the opportunity to take a ride as a co-drivers on the rally track near Klatovy in western Bohemia.

In this SIMPLY CLEVER PODCAST, we'll be interviewing Michal Hrabánek, head of ŠKODA Motorsport, and other team members. We’ll be discussing the development of the rally FABIA, the important role of computer simulations, and how different it is to design a car for customer teams, as ŠKODA no longer has a factory team.

PRE, the third largest electricity supplier in the Czech Republic, opened a new charging hub in Prague’s eleventh district with ten AC and one fast DC charger. In cooperation with ŠKODA, they also installed this small container – so-called second-life battery energy storage. This device is an answer to common questions like “What happens to the battery once it degrades?” And also, “How can I charge my car if I live in a flat with no garage?” This energy storage contains 48 batteries from ENYAQ iVs and ENYAQ COUPÉ iVs and helps to supply up to ten AC chargers here in Prague 11 or gives a boost to the 150kW DC charger next to them. And in the future, it might also help to maintain the balance in the grid for nearby homes.

That’s the topic for Jan Železný from ŠKODA AUTO Digilab and Jan Špatný, ŠKODA AUTO e-mobility team.

It might be frustrating when your wifi internet speed fluctuates. But in the worst-case scenario, it means your download is taking a bit longer, or the stream is not stable. But the same situation in the production hall would mean the industrial robots are not working properly, which might cause serious damage. ŠKODA IT thus partnered with the Vodafone Czech Republic and installed the first big commercial 5G mobile private network at its manufacturing plant in Mladá Boleslav. This 5G network is faster, more stable, and more robust than the data transfer technologies the company has used so far. Otto Zeman, IoT solution & service Lead at Vodafone and Martin Polák from ŠKODA IT department were in charge of installing the new 5G network in Mladá Boleslav