Skoda debuts new Octavia for 2020

Skoda’s Octavia estate and hatchback achieved its best-selling status within the Czech brand by offering functionality to its core market of company car drivers and families. With the new car, head of design Oliver Stefani wants the buying motivation to be more than just space and good value.

“This car talks to both halves of your brain,” he told CDN at its big reveal in Czech capital of Prague. “The previous generation car was also great, but it was more functional than emotional. This car has both sides.”

The changes have been achieved by spending a bit of extra money in certain areas, for example stretching out the rear lights so they extend onto the tailgate, and taking a few cues from highly successful design of the Superb (a car that sits a size above the Octavia).

The grille is a key area of change. Whereas the front end of the outgoing car started sloping upward from the base of the grille, the new grille is much more upright. “It makes the car more ‘proud’ and a little bit more grown up,” Stefani said.

The thick grille surround is adapted from the recent facelift of the Superb and serves an important purpose. It allows the slope of the bonnet to continue beyond its edge onto this surround, facilitating the upright grille but keeping the sheet metal behind the front crossmember – the first part of the main crash structure. The vertical grille slats also stand proud of the surround to further extend it.

The rounded fall to the bonnet towards the grille lets you “feel the engine compartment,” according to Stefani. “This gives a lot of tension to the car,” he said.

The headlights are back to being single glass units, but keep the ‘four-eye’ look of the outgoing Octavia by splitting the driving lights and main beams into distinct sections. Within the units, ‘needle’ grooves spear into the back – referencing the ‘crystalline’ design language of modern Skoda.

Below the headlights two prominent foglight surrounds are outlined on top by chunky black plastic. These surrounds have a double purpose by drawing in air that then gets vented across the front wheels to help with the aerodynamics. Stefani claims the new Octavia is 40 percent slipperier than the outgoing model as it works hard to reduce CO₂ to the satisfaction of its core fleet market. Skoda says that seven of its 16 engine choices will record CO₂ of below 100g/km as rated by the NEDC correlated emissions formula, including two mild hybrids and two plug-in hybrids.

The Octavia sees the return of one of the most satisfying design features from the Superb – the clamshell bonnet that instead of masking the bonnet line actually makes a virtue of it. The so-called ‘tornado line’ starts at the corner of the headlight units, continues along the gap between bonnet lid and front fender and moves into a crease along the doors just above the handles. “It’s so well integrated. It makes a very clean and simple design. It’s timeless,” said Stefani.

The best-selling Octavia shape in Europe is the estate at about 2:1 over the hatchback. But the design team has worked to redress the balance a bit by giving the hatch a more appealing coupé-like shape. To do that, the rear deck has been shortened and the rear light units extend onto the tailgate. Talking of the lights, Stefani said; “It’s more expensive but it looks a lot more grown-up. It stretches the car and it makes this super crystalline shape that looks like a coupé [when] seen from a distance.”

The interior is a big departure. The top half of the touchscreen floats above the dashboard and dominates with its 10-inch size. Below it is a shelf to allow users to rest their wrist while making their choice, important when Skoda has migrated more controls to the screen, including the climate controls. Some buttons remain below, however, including door lock, screen demist and a button that switches the screen to the climate controls.

Skoda has tried hard to move away from the more sober VW Group dash look by using different materials and colours. The bar that includes the wrist-rest was wrapped in a textured silvered foil in one version we saw, while a band behind the screen along to the passenger door was covered in a material with prominent stitching. Areas that were plastic, including the door cards, used different textures and grains. “It’s a light interior, not so much glossy back,” Stefani said.

He’s adamant however it’s not trying to be premium. “We call it smart understatement. We don’t want to be premium. We’re not premium. But we want to give the customer a good feeling when they sit in this car,” he said.

Skoda might be known for value, but they still have to spend money to keep up with the competition. “If you look at Kia, or Peugeot or Renault, they are all at a quite a high standard and for us it’s super important that our car is equal to or even a little bit better than our competitors,” Christian Strube, head of technical development for Skoda, told CDN.

It’s inevitable that it’ll be priced higher than before. “It’s a little bit more expensive because of exhaust gas regulations and also of course EuroNCAP; these are two big things that cost more money,” Strube said. No pricing has been revealed for the new model, which will be delivered to the first customers in spring next year.

The new iV plug-in hybrid model will be joined by the off-road influenced Scout and the performance RS models (vRS in the UK).