Skoda's Superb is under review, and a 4,850 mm concept explains why
Skoda's most profitable half-year yet, and its biggest car is the one in question
Klaus Zellmer will not say the Superb has a future. Asked whether Skoda's record results protect its line-up, the chief executive answered that this was not a given, and then pointed straight at the saloons and estates. Skoda has just closed a first half with 16.0 billion euros of revenue and an 8.5 percent return on sales. The car under the microscope is its largest one.
Zellmer says saloons and estates are not on the rising path
Skoda is openly studying whether it needs both the Octavia and the Superb in the next generation. Zellmer said the brand is proud of the Superb and loves the Octavia, that both sit safely in their markets and that the Octavia has led its segment since 2016. He then set out the problem: saloons, limousines and estates are not on the rising path. The question, in his words, is whether Skoda still needs the full monty, or whether there is a smarter way to cover both segments and both sets of buyers.
The Vision O concept measures 4,850 mm, and that is the smarter way
The smarter way has already been on a stand. Skoda's Vision O concept, shown in Munich in September 2025, previews the next Octavia as an electric estate on the Volkswagen Group's SSP platform, and it measures 4,850 mm long. Today's Octavia Combi is 4,698 mm. The Superb Combi is 4,902 mm. That puts the concept 152 mm above the car it is meant to replace and only 52 mm below the car whose future Zellmer will not guarantee. Production is expected in 2027 or 2028.
Dropping the Superb leaves the Volkswagen Passat alone in Bratislava
The Superb does not stand on its own. Skoda engineered both the fourth-generation Superb and the Volkswagen Passat, and the two are built on the same line at Volkswagen's Bratislava plant in Slovakia, under a decision taken in 2020 to share the cost of a shrinking segment. Volkswagen has already thinned its half of that deal, because the current Passat is sold in Europe only as an estate while the Superb still offers a liftback alongside its Combi. Take the Superb out and the Passat carries that line by itself.
Volkswagen Group is halving its model range by 2035
The wider context is a group-wide cull. Volkswagen's Future Plan, waved through by the supervisory board last week alongside 50,000 job cuts, commits the group to roughly halving the number of models it sells by 2035, on the argument that fewer nameplates deliver higher volumes each. Zellmer says Skoda currently runs the biggest portfolio in its history, because it is selling combustion, mild hybrid, full hybrid, plug-in hybrid and electric cars side by side. The end game, he said, is electric, and concentrating there strips out complexity.
Skoda's growth is coming from the Peaq, not from a 690-litre estate
The buyers Skoda is winning are not the ones shopping for a load bay. Its battery-electric deliveries rose 48.3 percent to a record 108,200 cars in the first half of 2026, making it the fourth best-selling electric brand in Europe. Its new flagship is the seven-seat electric Peaq, and the small Epiq works the other end of the range. The Superb Combi's 690 litres is still among the largest boots on sale in Europe, and it is no longer where the volume is going.
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The Superb's fate is already measurable, and the number is 52. That is how many millimetres separate the Vision O concept from a Superb Combi. Skoda will not put two estates within 52 mm of each other on the same platform, not under a plan that exists to raise volume per model. The smart way to cover both segments is not a shorter Superb. It is the Octavia growing into the space the Superb used to own, and a nameplate Skoda first used in 1934 being retired to pay for the move.
That is testable, and the test lands in 2027 or 2028 when the electric Octavia reaches production. If it arrives near the concept's 4,850 mm, the Superb is finished, because nothing is left for it to do. If Skoda pulls it back towards today's 4,698 mm, the Superb has a case and Bratislava keeps building both it and the Passat. The figure to watch is the length of the production car, not what Skoda says about heritage.
