► Cupra’s electric plans► Model range to increase in size
► Tavascan in 2024, city car in 2025
Cupra has announced plans to expand its offerings to customers in the years to come – some of which are confirmed to be electric cars.
As a reminder, Cupra is the recently-born brand that’s been spun entirely off of Seat. It used to be a performance derivative of Seat cars but, in 2018, the brand split off in its own direction.
The move was arguably met with suspicion when first announced, but it’s been steadily growing. In 2021, while Seat’s sales shrank by two per cent to 391,200 compared to 2020, Cupra’s grew by 189.4 per cent to 79,300 units globally. Contextually, Cupra is still small compared to the Seat parent brand, but shows how much the brand is gaining traction.
As the decade progresses, Cupra’s announcing more models with a focus on EV power. Its latest plan, announced in February 2022 and called ‘Cupra X 2’, is designed to further expand its model range, with more EVs on the way. ‘Four years ago, many people doubted us, but we never doubted ourselves,’ said Cupra CEO Wayne Griffiths at the ‘X 2’ event, ‘this year, we’ll prove once again that nothing can hold back our unstoppable impulse.’
What electric cars does Cupra currently have?
Just one for now: the Born. It was originally announced as the Seat El-Born (a model which remains unconfirmed as to whether it’ll go into production), before morphing into the Cupra model that’s recently gone on sale with the first deliveries in the UK expected in April 2022. It’s derived from the VW ID.3, with different battery and e-motor configurations.
Elsewhere, the Cupra Leon and Formentor coupe-SUV have plug-in hybrid options.
Cupra’s future electric plans
Next up for the brand is the Tavascan. Also based on the VW Group MEB electric platform, the Tavascan is an SUV similar in size to Audi’s Q4 e-Tron. Cupra’s confirmed it for production in 2024.
After that, Cupra’s confirmed it’s working on an ‘urban EV’ for 2025, with Griffiths naming it after the racy UrbanRebel concept revealed during the 2021 Munich motor show. The production car is expected to take some design cues from the concept.
In motorsport, Cupra has a team in Extreme E in the second-ever season of Extreme E, which started in mid-February 2022.
At the Cupra X 2 event, which was predominantly an event showcasing a new space in the metaverse (sigh…), Griffiths confirmed that Cupra will develop two new models for the range.
But details other than that are non-existent beyond some shadowy cars under a digital cloth. The one on the left looks like a Leon Estate, which could imply another variant of the model that already exists, while the one on the right seems not to fit a current Cupra shape. It sort of looks like a low-slung crossover, or maybe a small saloon like Audi’s S3. We’ll just have to wait and see, as Cupra says these new models will be announced in the next two years.
Keyword: Cupra X 2: plans to expand model range include new EVs