New Cupra Raval says no-camo hello: brand’s first electric supermini is nearly here
The next-generation Cupra EV flaunts its eccentric looks only weeks before the official reveal
The Cupra Raval is only a few weeks away from its official unveiling but until the covers come off, how about this? We’ve spied a completely uncamouflaged example at the tail-end of the winter-testing season. The new Raval will be the brand’s new small and cheap electric car, sitting at the precipice of a new wave of more affordable electric models from the Volkswagen Group as a whole.
We’ve already driven a prototype of the new Cupra Raval, but for now, these images reveal new information about what the car will look like before it hits the road later this year. Without its shape-shifting cladding, the Raval’s sporty shape is on full display here, with the angular lighting and aggressive bumpers in evidence.
The nose, with its triangular headlights and large lower grille opening, looks a little less aggressive than the Urban Rebel Concept that the Raval design is based on. The smooth surfacing and flush door handles remain from the show car, however.
The white car in these pictures looks to be of a lower specification, with fairly standard LED headlights and relatively small wheels. Look closely at the grey car, though, and you’ll see a more complex setup that does without a single, main LED beam. Instead, the main beams look to be made up from a collection of small light points, allowing the bulk of the headlight to be taken up with the expressive new daytime running light arrangement.
Both of the models pictured feature a heavily sculpted tailgate at the rear, with full-width lighting structures and an illuminated badge, as we’ve become accustomed to in other new Cupra models. However, while the lights are distinctive, the aggressive lower bumper and its contrasting diffuser-like elements help hide the car’s relative height, which is quite tall considering its placement in the supermini-sized B-segment.
What else do we know about the Cupra Raval?
Cupra is pitching its Raval as a sportier take on the Volkswagen Group’s new small electric hatch formula. Cupra will reveal the production car’s final design later this month, with UK deliveries set for the autumn.
Named after one of Barcelona’s grungy nightlife quarters, the 4m-long five-door packs lowered sports suspension and direct steering compared to the technically similar Volkswagen ID. Polo, although the pair will share a vast majority of their technical components.
The Raval will be launched with the option of a top-spec VZ Extreme model, with more power from the electric motor and elements like a limited-slip differential. The Cupra’s recipe will be shared with VW’s ID. Polo GTI too, if you fancy a more sober-looking warm electric hatch.
What about the batteries?
Cupra’s Raval electric hatchback, and its VW and Skoda badged cousins, will source their batteries from a brand new assembly line in Barcelona, Spain.
The battery unit, a bolt-on to SEAT’s long-standing Martorell factory and HQ, will ultimately be able to produce up to 300,000 battery packs a year.
Cupra has revealed the range and power outputs for its two Raval launch models, with a choice of two motors packing in excess of 200bhp. The base Raval Dynamic will have a 208bhp e-motor spinning the front wheels, and is claimed to travel up to 280-miles between charges. The Dynamic Plus has the same output and range.
The launch flagship is the VZ Extreme, which boosts power to 223bhp but with a trade-off: max range dips to a still respectable 249-miles. These mid- to high-spec launch cars will all have NMC (nickel-manganese-cobalt) batteries: lower power models with cheaper lithium-iron phosphate (LFP) batteries will follow, enabling Cupra to hit its entry-level price of around £25,000.
Spain will be the Volkswagen Group’s production hub for its entire family of affordable EVs, across three brands and all based on the new MEB+ electric car chassis. The Martotell assembly line will produce both NMC and LFP battery packs, which travel along a 600-metre bridge to the neighbouring factory to slot into the Raval and ID. Polo.
VW is setting up a separate battery supply to feed the Navarra plant in northern Spain, where the Skoda Epiq baby SUV and its Volkswagen sister model – the ‘VW ID. T-Cross’ – will be bolted together.
New battery technology
The battery assembly line introduces two advances for the Volkswagen Group. Workers are bolting together lithium-iron phosphate cells – popularised by Chinese car maker BYD – which are cheaper than the Nickel-Manganese-Cobalt chemistries VW’s ID cars have used until now. The facility will manufacture both LFP and NMC, sharing a uniform rectangular design for flexible manufacturing.
The other advance is the battery’s ‘cell-to-pack’ design. This eliminates some of the framework previously holding cells in place, cutting weight and cost. This allows car makers to cram more cells into the pack to boost range, a critical factor for small cars with a relatively limited space between the wheels for stowing the battery.
The opening ceremony was led by SEAT-Cupra CEO Markus Haupt and the chairman of Volkswagen’s core brand group (VW, Skoda and SEAT) Thomas Schäfer. He noted that the battery centre had been green-lit four years ago; assembly took two years and cost €300-million. The 64,000m2 facility will assemble a battery every 45-seconds, for a maximum capacity of 1,200 systems per day and 300,000 over an entire year – when demand has ramped up to meet the maximum capacity.
Making batteries is a very energy intensive process, more so than making combustion engines, though EVs pay back their carbon debt with zero-emission running. SEAT hopes to mitigate 70 per cent of the energy for this part of the battery assembly process with 11,000 solar roof panels; fine in Barcelona, less so in Bolton. Water needs are partly met by a rain collection system with the capacity of three Olympic swimming pools: fine in Bolton, less so in Barcelona.
“The inauguration of this battery system assembly plant is a turning point in the history of SEAT and Cupra,” said Markus Haupt, the Spanish division’s CEO. “We are ready to produce 100 per cent electric ‘made in Spain’ cars that will make electric mobility accessible across Europe.
“We are proud to be leading the ‘Electric Urban Car’ project for the Volkswagen Group and to produce two of the models that will change the rules of the electrification game – starting with the Cupra Raval,” he added.
The Martotell battery assembly line is part of a €10-billion investment in Spanish electrification from VW and its partners. Just under a third of that sum has been pumped into Martorell, transforming it into a flexible production hub that can manufacture electric, hybrid and combustion models.
Martorell is VW’s third biggest European plant, churning out up to 600,000 cars a year, including the SEAT Ibiza and Arona as well as the Raval. That’s a quarter of Spain’s entire vehicle output.
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