Spanish brand Seat is in trouble again: it is in conflict with the young brand Cupra, which is not to the liking of the bosses of the VW concern. For several months now, there have been rumors in the foreign press that the Seat brand could be archived, but the head of the Volkswagen Brand Group Core, Thomas Schäfer, said on the sidelines of the Munich Motor Show that the Seat will still live like this, it will just find a new use.
Founded in 1950, Seat was taken over by Volkswagen in 1986. As the German concern grew, the Spanish brand turned into a kind of suitcase without a handle, which was both hard to carry and a pity to leave — sales and profitability left much to be desired. Ferdinand Piech, the chief architect of the VW empire, planned to replace Seat with the Alfa Romeo brand, which he dreamed of buying back from Fiat, but his dream never came true. Seat was thrown into competition with Alfa Romeo several times, which in recent decades, to put it mildly, itself did not flourish much, but Piech and other VW bosses liked the image of Alfa, they tried to instill in Seat a higher degree of passion — alas, nothing good came of it. out.
In 2018, by a strong-willed decision of the VW management, the sports sub-brand Cupra broke away from Seat and turned into a new full-fledged brand as part of the German concern. Today, Volkswagen, Skoda, Seat and Cupra are part of the so-called Brand Group Core, which is managed by Thomas Schäfer. The British magazine Autocar spoke to Schaefer at the IAA Mobility exhibition now in Munich and asked him about the fate of the Seat.
The fact is that now the Seat and Cupra lineups are largely duplicated, and it is not very clear what, in fact, is the fundamental difference between the two Spanish brands. It is clear that Cupra is more about youth and sports, but Seat works for about the same audience. Both brands are now on the rise, but Cupra has better dynamics: according to JATO Dynamics, Cupra sales in Europe in January-June of this year amounted to 93,177 cars (+46% compared to the same period in 2022), Seat sales — 133 126 cars (+10%).
Cupra showed in Munich a spectacular concept electric shooting brake DarkRebel, created as a result of the collective creativity of the online community of Cupra fans, it shows the design direction of future models of the young Spanish brand. 1/5 
Cupra showed in Munich a spectacular concept electric shooting brake DarkRebel, created as a result of the collective creativity of the online community of Cupra fans, it shows the design direction of future models of the young Spanish brand. 2/5 
In Munich, Cupra showed a spectacular concept electric shooting break DarkRebel, created as a result of the collective creativity of the online community of Cupra fans, it shows vector design development of future models of a young spanish brand. 3/5 
Cupra showed in Munich a spectacular concept electric shooting brake DarkRebel, created as a result of the collective creativity of the online community of Cupra fans, it shows the design direction of future models of the young Spanish brand. 4/5 
Cupra showed in Munich a spectacular concept electric shooting brake DarkRebel, created as a result of the collective creativity of the online community of Cupra fans, it shows the design direction of future models of the young Spanish brand. 5/5
So, when asked about the future of Seat, Thomas Schaefer answered literally the following: «The future of Seat is Cupra.» From the explanations of the top manager, it follows that VW management is not going to develop both brands in parallel, the main bet is made on Cupra as a younger and dynamically developing brand, not burdened by the failures of the past. Cupra's lineup will expand while current Seat models will gradually phase out over the course of this decade.
Schafer says the group has no plans to abandon Seat, but its role will change. Most likely, Seat will become a brand of new mobility by analogy with the Mobilize brand from Renault Group, that is, it will be reoriented to modern digital services (subscriptions, carsharing) and lighter equipment (electric quadricycles, scooters, bicycles, scooters, etc.). Apparently, there is no clear concept yet, but it is clear that it will not be the same as before — Seat will gradually leave the segment of mass passenger cars.
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