Official statement from SEAT: our brand has a future
New electric-powered compact car
‘Automobile Barcelona’ in 2023 is all about the past, present and future. SEAT looks back on more than 70 years of history there and celebrates 30 years since it moved into Martorell. SEAT S.A. also announced there that the new electric-powered compact car from Cupra will be called Raval.
“SEAT put Spain on wheels with the SEAT 600, laying the foundation for what Spain is today: the second-largest automaker in Europe and ninth worldwide. Now it is time to put Spain on electric wheels,” said Wayne Griffiths, CEO of SEAT and Cupra.
Record profits for SEAT
At “Auto Barcelona,” the company announced the best quarterly figures in its history. Between January and March, SEAT S.A. posted record profits of 144 million euros. This represents an improvement of 139 million euros compared to the first quarter of last year. Sales amounted to 3.6 billion euros (+48%). The big driver behind these historic figures is Cupra. At the same time, the SEAT brand is also showing very positive momentum.
Figures Cupra
Cupra has exceeded all expectations by selling more than 300,000 cars since the brand’s launch in 2018. In 2022, Cupra realized sales of 4.4 billion euros, some 40% of the company’s total. This also makes Cupra one of the strongest growing brands in both Europe and Spain. In the first quarter of this year, the sporty brand already sold 46,000 cars – 83% more than in the first three months of 2022.
SEAT currently has a well-filled order book. The improved situation in semiconductors also translated into sales growth of 20% in the first quarter. Meanwhile, production volume has returned to pre-pandemic levels.
Says Wayne Griffiths, “These results underscore the success of our electrification strategy and highlight our commitment to electromobility. To carry out the transformation to an all-electric future, we have the best of both worlds with SEAT and Cupra.”
Future
In 1993, SEAT inaugurated the Martorell plant. This involved an investment of 244.5 billion pesetas (about 1.5 billion euros), the largest ever by an automaker in Spain. With the “Future: Fast Forward” project, SEAT S.A. now aims to transform Spain into a European hub for electromobility. The company is therefore investing 3 billion euros in the Martorell plant to produce electrically powered models for the Volkswagen Group starting in 2025.
SEAT S.A. is also building the future of the SEAT brand, working to revamp the Ibiza, Arona and Leon to offer models with efficient plug-in hybrid technology and internal combustion engines until the end of this decade. The focus of SEAT’s electrification will be on new forms of mobility for young people, such as car sharing, subscription forms and micro-mobility.
SEAT MÓ
With SEAT MÓ, the brand has already gained a lot of experience with this. SEAT MÓ is one of the main shared mobility services in Barcelona and has sold some 10,000 electric scooters in 15 markets over the past two years.
Conclusion: SEAT will be less than ever a passenger car manufacturer in the future. Instead, the brand will become a provider of various forms of mobility. For that reason, SEAT also does not currently get electric cars. That role is played by Cupra. Dutch SEAT dealers are not happy with that choice, as they want BEVs in the showroom. The solution is to make those SEAT dealers also Cupra dealers.