Spanish VW Group brand Cupra is promising a “genuinely affordable” EV for Australia with its new ultra-compact electric city car that could cost less than $40,000 when it arrives in 2025.
The Cupra Urban Rebel is confirmed to be part of a second wave of models that will start arriving from 2025, joining up with the brand’s initial line-up of vehicles launching this week in Australia.
The Urban Rebel is just over four metres in length, powered by a 166kW electric motor good for a 0-100km/h sprint of 6.9 seconds, and promises a driving range of 440 kilometres.
It will use the VW Group’s smallest battery electric platform – dubbed MEB Small – which will also be used for a Volkswagen expected to be called ID.1, as well as a Skoda version.
Cupra Australia has already told Wheels that the brand’s first EV, the Born that’s coming in early 2023, will be priced similarly to a VW Golf GTI. The GTI currently costs about $55,000 before on-road costs.
Cupra’s global CEO, Wayne Griffiths, said the VW Group’s smallest EVs are planned to cost from the equivalent of $30,000 in Europe.
“The small BEV, as we call it, has the ambition from the Volkswagen Group of having cars starting at around €20,000 ($29,500),” said Griffiths. “That won’t be the ambition of Cupra because Cupra is positioned above the mass segment – we’ll have more content (features) and in terms of power and performance different as well. So below Born and affordable.”
A starting point of about €25,000 is anticipated Cupra Urban Rebel when it launches in Europe in 2025, which would be about AU$37,000 if converted directly.
Based on today’s Australian market, that would still make the Urban Rebel the cheapest EV available. Much is likely to change by the Urban Rebel’s 2026 arrival.
Griffiths also believes the Born is also a relatively affordable model.
[With] the price level of the Born, I don’t know in Australia, mainly I know in the markets we launch in already – in Spain, Germany – it’s an affordable car,” said Griffiths.
“And it’s out at the lease rates of around say Leon or a Volkswagen golf. With the good to high residual values that the electric cars have combined them with the reasonable price and you get to an affordable price.”
The Cupra brand is only four years’ old, having been spun off the Seat brand in 2018 to capitalise on the trend for “disruptor” EV companies such as Tesla.
Griffiths says it will target a younger generation of buyers than other VW Group brands.
“We are the only new brand, a brand created from scratch. So, I think that’s our role in the Volkswagen Group – a contemporary brand for the next generation of car lovers.
“Our customers are on average one generation younger than the other brands in the group. We’re 10 to 15 years younger, we’ve seen the research where [our average buyer is] around 40 years’ old, which still seems quite old, but in an SUV segment is quite young, where the majority of other brands are somewhere between 50 and 60 [years old].
“There’s a generation of young customers coming up who want different brands [for their cars] than their parents and their grandparents. They want to stand out for their generation and they want to stand out because they stand for something.
“The brands that resonate with this new generation have to be brands that not base their values on history, heritage, prestige, status, money… but more values that are in line with today’s generation. So, it’s more about sustainability, contemporary values, and being authentic.
“And I think with Cupra, we deliver that. We want to stand out by standing for cool cars from Barcelona, with great design and cars that are fun to drive, emotional, sexy, even in an electric area.”
Cupra plans to offer a fully-electric vehicle lineup from 2030. The Urban Rebel will follow the 2023 Born and the 2025 Tavascan electric vehicle.
The Terramar, also due here in 2025, will be a plug-in hybrid featuring the company’s last internal combustion engine.
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