As Scandinavian automakers, Saab and Volvo had their fair share of innovations to deal with wintery conditions. However, these days, the former is defunct and the latter is making relatively mainstream automobiles. In fairness, so is Skoda, but the greatest automaker from Czechia still has one unique winter feature that more automakers need to adopt.
If you’ve ever lived in a cold and snowy climate, you know the excruciating pain of dealing with frost on a windshield. You can’t just pour hot water on it, and you can’t use the wipers—you’re lucky if they’re not frozen in place. More often than not, you’re stuck simply scraping the ice with whatever you have handy.
Thanks to harsh European winters, Skoda’s product developers are very well aware of this problem. To that end, they’ve ensured drivers won’t be caught without a scraper when the first snows hit. That’s because they tucked a neat little ice scraper where you wouldn’t expect to find one.
If you walk out to your Skoda and find the windscreen covered in ice, you needn’t worry about scraping with a library card or scrounging around for something in the house. Instead, you can just pop open your fuel door (or the rear hatch on some models) and slip out the nifty little ice scraper that Skoda included from the factory.
The scraper features some nice design touches, too. These days, Skoda tends to make them bright green so they stand out. If they’d made them black, you’d probably own the vehicle for 20 years before you even realized it was there. Plus, fluro green is just a cool color regardless.
[Ed Note: I’m not sure the fuel door location is ideal, as this can often be frozen shut after an ice storm. -DT].Â
The scraper largely flies under the radar, but it did make the New York Times when it showed up at a press event in 2012. It’s unclear precisely when Skoda first started including them with vehicles, but it appears to be a relatively recent innovation. Supplier Plastika noted it won a contract to produce them for the Skoda Rapid in January 2011. Notably, the scraper also includes extra features: a magnifier and a tyre-tread gauge.
Nobody really wants to have a random ice scraper rattling around in the trunk if they don’t have to. Skoda instead included this essential tool with the vehicle, so it’s always on hand and you have a tidy place to stow it. It’s a great example of an automaker trying to make its customers lives easier.
Beyond that, it’s there for safety reasons. You’re more likely to drive with a clear screen if you’ve got a scraper on hand. Skoda also notes that drivers might not see pedestrians in bad conditions if their windscreen is frosted over. By having a clean, clear view of the road ahead, they’re far more likely to avoid a dangerous incident. The added benefit of a scraped screen is that it allows the wipers to be far more effective at keeping the screen clear as you drive along.
The ice scraper isn’t the only piece of weather-related equipment that Skoda offers, it’s just a particularly unique example. The company also sells the majority of its vehicles with standard or optional door-mounted umbrellas—something you really don’t see a lot of outside of Rolls-Royce product. Heated screens is also a popular option on many models, with metal layers or wires embedded in the glass to keep fog and ice away.
We’ve featured Skoda’s unique innovations before; their wiper washer bottle with an integrated funnel is a particular treat. It’s something of a company tradition. Skoda has been touting the “Simply Clever” tagline since 2003, applying it to everything from removable interior lamps to self-deploying door-edge protectors.
What I love most about Skoda, though, is that it doesn’t hide these achievements—it celebrates them! Nothing stresses me out more than trying to report on some neat innovation, only to find that nobody at the automaker thought to photograph the little, intimate details that matter so much. Skoda does this so well, and I applaud them for it.
These days, so many automakers have been swallowed up by joint consortiums, and diversity in the car population shrinks under these conditions. However, even as it lives under the shadow of the Volkswagen parent company, Skoda has continued to maintain a charming character all its own. That ought to be celebrated—ice scrapers, umbrellas, and all!
Image credits: Skoda
Commercial airliners and many other larger aircraft (like not the C-150 I used to own or the C-172 Mercedes flies) have electrically heated windshields. I once got to sit in the right seat of a Beechcraft King Air and noticed them. Under certain lighting conditions, the wires can be quite prominent, but not unsafely so. Certainly beats an opaque windshield in icing conditions.