Cupra will double its line-up by introducing two new electrified models before the end of 2023, and putting the electric Tavascan and UrbanRebel concepts into production by 2025.
The two unnamed electrified models were teased at an event celebrating Cupra’s fourth anniversary as a standalone brand and announcing a new strategy called Cupra X2.
Seat and Cupra’s president, Wayne Griffiths, told reporters the new vehicles won’t be in a classical segment and will be “something different and unique”.
Holographic projections of the cars draped in cloth flanked Griffiths at the end of the streamed presentation.
One appears to be a lower-slung wagon, à la the Volkswagen Arteon Shooting Brake, while the other appears to sit a little higher, suggesting a coupe SUV like the Skoda Enyaq Coupe iV.
“One of them may not be fully electric,” Griffiths told Auto Express.
“We believe up to 2030 there will still be demand for combustion, hybrid, plug-in hybrid and you have to offer that solution – particularly while the infrastructure is not there.”
“Those two cars, from a Cupra perspective, have to add on, not substitute, so we have to stay away from the other cars,” said Griffiths to Autocar.
Born
Formentor
He added they need to make sense as part of the wider Volkswagen Group portfolio, be appropriately “special” for the enthusiast-focused Cupra brand, and go a “step further” than being rebadges.
That suggests they could be more unique models like the Formentor, rather than the Born which shares much of its sheetmetal with the Volkswagen ID.3.
It’s unclear what these models will be.
Cupra already has a sleek, plug-in hybrid crossover in the Formentor, while the electric Tavascan promises coupe SUV styling.
Leon
There’s a bigger gap in Cupra’s passenger car line-up, with no vehicle sitting above the Volkswagen Golf-sized Leon.
That also applies to sister brand Seat, whose last model above the Leon was the Exeo, axed in 2013. This was an Audi A4 lightly restyled and given to the Spanish brand following the introduction of a new A4.
Cupra is aiming to double its global sales to nearly 160,000 units in 2022, more than a third of its parent company Seat’s sales volumes.
The fledgling spinoff brand sold 79,300 cars worldwide last year, itself up a significant 189 per cent over 2020.
UrbanRebel concept
Tavascan concept
The company said the Formentor accounted for 70 per cent of its global sales, while electrified vehicles accounted for 41 per cent overall.
Cupra offers plug-in hybrid versions of the Leon and Formentor, while the Born joined the line-up late last year.
The brand’s range of electric vehicles will grow to include the production Tavascan in 2024 and a production version of the city-focused UrbanRebel in 2025.
Cupra will switch to selling exclusively electric vehicles by 2030.
Ateca
That means by 2025, Cupra will have three EVs, the two new electrified vehicles, plus the current Born, Leon and Formentor.
Griffiths told Autocar the Ateca, the oldest of the current line-up, “will probably still be around”.
It was launched in 2018, two years after the launch of the Seat Ateca it’s based on.
Cupra is launching in Australia this year with not only the Ateca, but also the Formentor and Leon. The Born will follow either late this year or early next.
Keyword: Cupra teases two new electrified vehicles due by 2023