Future has long been uncertain for the Seat brand as Cupra became the focus
Seat boss ends speculation on brand’s future; affordable EV will come when it can be built profitably
The Seat brand will live on in the future with a lower-cost electric car positioned below the Cupra range.
Seat and Cupra boss Wayne Griffiths sought to put an end to speculation on the future of the Seat brand once and for all by confirming the likelihood of such a model in the future, speculation in part fuelled by Seat S.A (the parent company for Seat and Cupra) chairman Thomas Schafer who said last year that “Seat’s future was Cupra”.
That future beyond today’s range of Seat models, said Griffitths, will take shape when lower-cost electric cars can be made profitably.
“The €20,000 question is when Seat needs to be on the table and as part of the answer,” Griffiths told Autocar.
Griffiths said that while the focus of the Seat group will remain on Cupra for the foreseeable future as it is simply more profitable, the focus will be placed on Seat again when electrification reaches lower-priced segments and there is suitable demand for such products.
Such a car is not an immediate priority for the Seat group as it would not be profitable today, and Griffiths said “my priority is profitability”. Seat S.A. made €625 million profit last year “with half of all our turnover from Cupra, and with higher profitability [than Seat]”, Cupra having helped push Seat S.A.’s margins to 4.4% and now accounting for close to 50% of Seat S.A.’s volumes.
Seat has recently invested in substantial facelifts for the Ibiza and Arona models and Griffiths said their reveal was important to show the company is still committed to investing in Seat models.
Cupra and Seat models will now “both live together for at least the next five years and live in perfect harmony as they don’t get in each other’s way”, although there will be no new Cupra models launched that would also carry a Seat badge, and vice versa. To that end, all immediate Seat group launches will be Cupras.
Griffiths added: “There is room for both [brands] and one doesn’t exclude the other. But sometimes you have to make priorities, saving your company, saving your workers and saving the future.”
Griffiths said Cupra will always be positioned above the mass market but not in the premium segment. That higher positioning of Cupra is what would exclude it from launching a model priced as low as €20,000, the Cupra entry point being the upcoming Raval, which will be a sister car to the upcoming Volkswagen Golf-sized VW ID 2 and priced between €25,000-€30,000.
Cupra is leading the development of the Raval, ID 2 (plus the higher-riding ‘ID 2X’) and Skoda Epiq on a simplified version of the MEB architecture, and will build them all at its Martorell plant from 2026. The development and production of these models is part of a €10 billion investment from the Volkswagen Group in Spain, that also includes a new gigafactory in Valencia.
Griffiths said that these investments showed that the company is committed to Seat, and the focus is now understood in Spain. Indeed, Griffiths said he had even been asked to clarify the future of Seat by the King of Spain (whose first car was an Ibiza) which he was happy to do.
