Seat IBE Concept

By Michael Taylor

September 2010

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It’s a glimpse of SEAT’s future! This is the latest version of the firm’s all-electric IBE Concept, which debuted at March’s Geneva Motor Show. Nobody outside SEAT’s Spanish design studio has seen this car, yet Auto Express has driven it, ahead of its appearance at this week’s Paris Motor Show.

It’s very different to the Geneva vehicle. For starters, it runs, thanks to a hi-tech Siemens electric motor. It has a sharper take on Seat’s future design language, too. The low, angular and muscular body has none of the slashes, vents and chrome add-ons usually associated with concepts, while every line makes a triangular point to the SEAT logos on the front and rear, or out to the wide wheelarches. To highlight the electric drivetrain, the grille is filled in and the badges on the nose and tail light up.

Inside, SEAT has gone for a minimalist approach. This exaggerates the space on offer in a car that, at 3.83 metres long, is shorter than the current Ibiza. The two rear seats fold individually to boost load space and give a large, flat floor. Yet when they’re in place, there’s plenty of headroom, even though the car is only 1.23 metres high and has its batteries placed under the floorpan.

In the front is a pair of leather-covered plastic bucket seats, and it feels as if half the dash has been sliced away. As the car is electric, a spindly, curved panel replaces the centre console, and houses the Park, Drive, Neutral and Reverse buttons. Instead of a built-in screen, SEAT has developed its own iPhone app. Dock your Apple handset in the top of the dash, and it takes care of music, navigation and other vehicle settings. Two touchpads on the steering wheel give control over the iPhone – your hands don’t leave the rim.

Push the Drive button, and nothing happens until you squeeze the throttle. Then there’s a soft whine from the electric motor and the IBE picks up briskly. It looks as fast as a Tesla Roadster, but 0-62mph in 9.7 seconds is more warm hatch pace. There’s no messing around with gears, though, with the single-ratio box taking the IBE all the way to its 100mph top speed. Then again, the claimed 80-mile range will tumble if you use a heavy right foot.

The motor has a throbbing whine, while the 19-inch tyres, hand-cut for Paris, produce very little road noise. The only other sound comes from the typical creaks and groans from the hand-built body, which isn’t engineered for road driving. Hard cornering isn’t what we’re here for, but the low and wide stance means the IBE stays flat and grips well in bends. The trade-off is minimal suspension travel, which would make for a firm ride on the road.

A lithium-ion battery pack and a mix of steel and aluminium in the chassis and plastic body panels keep weight down to 1,100kg. SEAT says the production model shouldn’t be any heavier than 1,200kg. But the IBE isn’t likely to make dealers for a few years yet. The next step is a Leon Twin Drive Ecomotive. This plug-in hybrid is due in 2014, promising a 35-mile range on battery power alone, without having to switch on its range-extending petrol engine.