Škoda Starts Building the Peaq in Mladá Boleslav, Its Seven-Seat Electric Flagship

Škoda started series production of the Peaq at its main plant in Mladá Boleslav on 6 August 2026. The car is an all-electric seven-seater and the brand's electric flagship, and it is being built on the same line as the electric Enyaq and Elroq — and the combustion-engined Octavia.

Four cars, one line, two kinds of powertrain

That last detail is the interesting part of this launch. Most manufacturers moving to electric cars have built or converted dedicated EV lines, which works when demand is predictable and hurts badly when it is not: a dedicated line running below capacity is expensive idle capital.

Škoda is running its electric flagship down the same line as a petrol Octavia. If electric demand runs hot, the mix shifts; if it cools, the line keeps working. It is a hedge against exactly the demand volatility that has caught out manufacturers across Europe this year.

The plant has room for it. Electric cars accounted for almost 23% of all Škoda vehicles built at the company's Czech plants in the first half of 2026, and moving other production around freed the Mladá Boleslav capacity the Peaq needed.

What buyers get

Close to 8,500 orders before a single car has been built is a real signal for a flagship-priced model, though it is worth remembering that an order book taken before deliveries is a softer commitment than a registration.

Why a seven-seat EV matters more than it sounds

The European electric market is dense with compact crossovers and thin at the top of the family segment. Buyers who need a third row have had comparatively little to choose from without going to a large premium SUV, and a seven-seat electric SUV from a mainstream VW Group brand widens that shelf considerably.

Combining seven seats with more than 640 km of range is also the specific combination that makes an EV work for the use case that actually needs three rows: long family journeys, fully loaded, where range anxiety is least tolerable.

The Czech angle

For readers in the Czech Republic and Slovakia this is a domestic industrial story as much as a product one. Škoda's electric flagship is a Czech-built car, assembled at the company's home plant alongside the model it has sold in Europe for three decades, and the Peaq is the car that takes electric production at Mladá Boleslav from a share of the mix to the top of the range.

Whether that translates into competitive pricing is the question the launch does not yet answer. Škoda has built its European position on undercutting the brands above it, and the Peaq is entering a segment where its natural rivals cost considerably more. The order book suggests buyers already expect that pattern to hold.