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
I bought the funnel caps on the Jungle Site last month, 2 for $10… these fit on all my cars. Soft rubbery material will stretch to fit most filler necks. Fit perfectly on my Toyotas (after cutting off the factory clip). Not so great on the MDX due to clearance, these are large and a bottle tight against the fender is a compromised fit. Tested on the Corolla, a car that always spilled and no mess. 8 of 10, would buy again.
That washer fluid cap that doubles as a funnel will be brittle and snap off in less than 5 years. Plastic embrittlement in the engine bay is a huge problem, and it’s 10x worse for any type of plastic hinge. They could have used a normal style cap and just integrated the funnel shape into the reservoir body for nominally lower cost and better longevity.
Then again cars lasting more than 100k miles is a bad thing for an automaker.
See my above post, these are soft silicone. They stretch to fit. I bought a few on the Jungle site to try out (2 for $10).
As the custodian of a 2nd gen Skoda Superb wagon, I was a bit disappointed to see I didn’t get a scraper behind my fuel door – Then I remembered that I live on the west coast of Australia, and we never get ice, let alone snow, so it was pointless.
What is way more useful here is the outstandingly powerful air conditioning, and the face level rear seat vents. It’s a very comfortable car to be in when the temperature is north of 40 degrees (that’s 104 in freedoms) outside.
The Superb does have all of the other Simply Clever features though, a cargo cover that automatically retracts when the tailgate opens, the rechargeable torch/boot light, the umbrella in the rear door, flip out bag hooks, the flat load floor when the rear seats are folded, the metal rails with movable tie down points and the retractable load “seatbelt” thing.
It’s extremely well equipped for an older car, and I’m going to miss all that stuff when I eventually replace it. Sadly, the newer Superbs aren’t fitted with a lot of those little niceties for what I’m assuming is reasons of cost.
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.
Ford tried this in the late ’80s/early ’90s on some Panther-platform models. I think it was optional on Crown Vic/Country Squire and Grand Marquis and standard on Town Cars starting towards the end of the “box” era. There was a continuous thin coating – it had to be deleted from and made incompatible with the Police Interceptor packages after the first year since it blocked outgoing radar signals.
I’m not sure if there were any problems with it other than that specific edge case or if it was just purged as part of the late ’90s cost-cutting push.
I’m picturing a ball of aluminum foil in a microwave in the CVPI. lol
Insta-Clear was great ’till it failed. Or the windshield got a stone chip and spider crack.