The end of the Seat brand is yet to be certified - it will have to receive the approval of the company's Supervisory Board, made up of representatives of workers and shareholders - but the truth is that the Volkswagen group had been relegating the Spanish firm in its investment and electrification plans for years. The reason was its low profit margins that made a brand unattractive, which is also not the only generalist within the consortium - Skoda, a flagship of Czech origin, offers sales levels much higher than Seat. For this reason, Luca de Meo, CEO of the Spanish firm between the end of 2015 and the beginning of 2020, decided to launch a new Seat sister company on the market in 2018: Cupra.
The new flagship, whose name arose from the company's sports division (Cup Racing, which evolved into Cupra) in the 1990s, went on the market with the aim of reaching an audience with greater purchasing power and, therefore, offered better margins. The expectations of the new brand were quickly exceeded and its first own model, the Formentor - Cupra also has models originally from Seat such as the Cupra León -, launched in 2020, became Seat SA's best-seller in 2022.
The total commitment to Cupra became clear precisely that year, when Griffiths presented three new electrified models for the firm and none for Seat. It didn't do it then and it didn't do it later either: Seat has survived for years with a purely combustion range and no electric cars in sight - the Born, Cupra's first electric car, had originally been designed for Seat, but was finally left to the premium brand. This, in practice, meant putting an expiration date on the brand in a Europe that is moving towards the total electrification of sales in 2035, despite the fact that Brussels has opened the door so that 10% of combustion vehicles can then be sold.
"We'll see, we have made the decision that at least until the Euro 7 emissions regulations [arrive in November of this year for new designs and for all new registrations in 2027]. At that time we will have to see what needs to be met and if it is possible to do so with these cars. The decision will be made when there is more stability. I leave it open at this moment, it makes no sense to set a date, because it will depend a lot on the regulation and what customers are buying," Griffiths responded in an interview with this medium in the summer. of 2023 when asked if there was an end date for the Seat range. At that time, the company was going through a great moment, with profit margins higher than those of the Volkswagen brand itself. All thanks to Cupra, which led Seat SA to its record annual operating profits in 2024, with a total of 633 million euros, still under Griffiths' command. The company then explained that between 2019 and 2024, profit per car sold increased by 35% thanks to Cupra's drive.
Later, the company blamed the general crisis in the automobile sector and the blow caused by the tariffs that Europe imposed on electric vehicles manufactured in China, including the Cupra Tavascan, the company's most expensive model. “We lose money selling Tavascanes,” the current CEO of Seat and Cupra, Markus Haupt, stated in another interview with this medium in November of last year.
That problem has already been overcome after the withdrawal of tariffs by the European Commission and Seat has gone from earning one million euros in all of 2025 to registering an operating profit of 122 million in the first half of this year. The confidence of the Volkswagen group in Cupra is such that the consortium's own CEO, Oliver Blume, attended the launch of the new Cupra Raval in Spain this year, the brand's entry-level model and one of the cheapest electric vehicles sold by a group mired in a serious crisis due to its inability to compete with Chinese brands.
Although it may seem that it is simply one brand replacing another, the possible death of Seat as a flagship raises an important question in the plant that the group has in Martorell (Barcelona), where some 11,000 workers are employed. Three of Seat's most iconic models are made there: the León, the Ibiza and the Arona. The end of the brand would make the arrival of new models to replace those vehicles a necessity, something that adds to the unions' previous request for a second platform for a larger electrified car, which would give higher margins than the two B-segment electric cars that Martorell has begun to assemble this year: the aforementioned Raval and the Volkswagen ID. Pole. Despite this, at Seat they highlight the group's commitment to Spain, where it has mobilized an investment of 10,000 million euros to electrify its national car production and make batteries in Sagunto.
