Seat's Spanish battery assembly project gets additional $333 million

18 July 2023

Seat, the Spanish automaker renowned for its combustion cars, is making a decisive move towards an electric future. The company has pledged a whopping $322 million toward constructing a new battery cell assembly plant in Martorell, Spain. This industrial leap forward is expected to create over 400 direct jobs and a modest handful of indirect ones.

This plant is not merely a manufacturing unit covering an expansive area of 64,000 square meters. It will double as an assembly hub for PowerCo cells produced at a gigafactory in Sagunto, Valencia. The central figure behind this ambitious undertaking, Seat President Wayne Griffiths, expressed that this facility will be intricately connected to Workshop 10. The latter is the production site tasked with churning out a variety of Electric Vehicles (EVs) for the Volkswagen Group, including the highly-anticipated Cupra Raval.

With a construction timeline commencing in the following weeks and concluding in 2025, Griffiths conveyed that this assembly plant is not just another addition to Seat's industrial portfolio. Rather, it is the foundation stone for a potential second platform in Martorell. It provides a much-needed jolt to make Spain a focal point for European electric mobility.

The unveiling of this battery cell assembly plant follows Griffiths’ disclosure that Seat is presently concentrating on electrifying its Cupra brand. This focus on Cupra leaves the Seat brand to continue production of combustion models for the foreseeable future. With Griffiths wearing the double hat of Seat's president and Cupra's chief executive, he openly admitted that electrifying both brands at the same time is beyond the company’s current capability. This implies that a Seat EV debut will be kept on hold until at least 2026.

While the skeptical might claim this strategy paints a picture of Seat in a state of stagnation, Cupra's storyline tells a tale of dynamic evolution. Already retailing the VW ID.3-based Born EV, Cupra is preparing for the debut of the fully electric Tavascan SUV. It also anticipates the debut of an electric hatchback in 2025, aptly named the Raval, as an offshoot of the UrbanRebel concept, based on the VW ID.2all concept vehicle.

In the grand scheme of things, Seat's decision to build a battery cell assembly plant represents more than a significant investment. It signals a commitment to transforming the company’s roadmap towards electric mobility. It might seem that Seat is dragging its feet on electrifying its primary brand. However, as the saying goes, "Slow and steady wins the race." Seat's strategic approach might just prove to be the winning formula in the evolving landscape of EV manufacturing.

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