Škoda Auto a.s., often shortened to Škoda, is a Czech automobile manufacturer established in 1925 as the successor to Laurin & Klement and headquartered in Mladá Boleslav, Czech Republic. Škoda Works became state owned in 1948. After 1991, it was gradually privatized to the German multinational conglomerate Volkswagen Group, becoming a partial subsidiary in 1994 and a wholly owned subsidiary in 2000.

Laurin & Klement was a Czech automobile, motorcycle and bicycle manufacturing company founded in 1895 in Mladá Boleslav, Kingdom of Bohemia by automotive pioneers Václav Laurin and Václav Klement. Car production commenced in 1905, and the company soon became the largest car manufacturer in Austria-Hungary. It was acquired by industrial conglomerate Škoda Works in 1925 and re-branded as Škoda Auto, which is today the largest car manufacturer in the Czech Republic and a part of the Volkswagen Group.