SEAT’s future unclear as brand held in limbo
Delayed model launches and unprofitable electric plans leave SEAT’s next steps uncertain
Spanish brand SEAT is facing an uncertain future, with the inability to make costs add up on a new small electric car leaving the brand devoid of all-new models in the coming years.
The brand’s head of research and development, Werner Tietz, confirmed to Auto Express that SEAT won’t launch another new internal-combustion model, although the Ibiza and Arona will receive heavy revisions to take them to the end of the decade. That ties SEAT’s future to making the sums work on a small electric car, something it has so far failed to achieve.
Speaking just ahead of his abrupt departure as SEAT and Cupra chief executive in late March, Wayne Griffiths told Auto Express that the brand needs to reinvent itself and return to the core strengths of being the entry gate for the Volkswagen Group, attracting younger customers with “affordable electo-mobility”.
“But not only affordable for the customer, but affordable for us, and that's the catch 22 at the moment - making small electric cars profitable,” he continued. “That's why we haven't been able to prioritise the decision on making a small electric entry SEAT, which is where it should be.”
Speaking about not being part of the Volkswagen ID.1 development where, unusually, VW’s £20,000 small EV won’t have siblings from SEAT/Cupra, Audi or Skoda, Griffiths said the cost to the SEAT was better spent elsewhere.
“If you want to be in a project you have to pay for your part of the development; there’s no point just doing a badge, it needs to be a SEAT and that costs money” he said. “At the moment the Cupra business is more profitable, so that money is better spent doing Cupras.”
Although he has since left the business, Griffiths did predict that a small electric SEAT would come, and that the VW Group as a whole would need it to happen.
“The time will come when I think it not only makes sense for us, it certainly makes sense for the whole Volkswagen Group. I think it needs an entry brand, and a brand that can attract a younger generation and offer affordable electro mobility, and that would be the ideal position for SEAT. Just at the moment it’s not the priority.”
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