This was Cupra's ambitious plan to conquer the United States.

Cupra will not be launching in the United States in 2030, as the brand's former CEO, Wayne Griffiths, had predicted. The new international landscape, marked by uncertainties related to the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on European products, and Seat's commercial results, with a 90% drop in operating profit in the first six months of the year, are the two factors that explain the decision of the brand's new management.

The decision reflects Seat and Cupra's desire to maintain strict control over the brand's production costs and focus Cupra's efforts on the commercial launch of the new Raval, the brand's first electric vehicle manufactured entirely in Martorell.

An unavoidable and ambitious project

The brand itself has issued a statement explaining its decision to postpone its arrival in the US market "due to the current challenges in the automotive sector and in response to market dynamics," although it emphasizes that Cupra "is postponing, not canceling, its plan to establish a commercial presence in the United States."

The initial roadmap outlined by Griffiths involved opening up to 20 new Cupra Garages in several US states, with a special focus on key states such as California and Florida, for example, where Cupra products could fit with the lifestyles and preferences of its buyers. The ambitious plan designed by the former CEO of Seat and Cupra was accompanied by an agreement with the Penske automotive group, with experience in racing on the other side of the Atlantic and a rich history that includes participations and victories in NASCAR, IndyCar, and Formula E, as well as Formula E, which specializes in hybrid and sports vehicles.

The first reports from the Martorell brand even pointed to sales targets of around 100,000 units per year in the United States and the possibility of installing a Cupra factory in the United States to produce cars that would be more suited to the tastes of American buyers, following the example of the X, X5 and X6 in the United States.

At this point, it is worth remembering that the North American market is unique in the world, with a strong demand for pickup trucks or pickup (more than a million units are registered each year) with powerful eight-cylinder gasoline engines, a vehicle type that no European manufacturer has ever seriously considered, and with strong differences between the preferences of buyers in large cities on both coasts of the country and those inland. In any case, a vehicle like the Cupra Formentor, the brand's biggest seller in Europe and the backbone of Cupra's commercial offering, is poorly suited for the American market, where compact sporty coupe SUVs have little popularity among the general public.

In this sense, Cupra's plan to gain a foothold in the North American market involved pure electric vehicles like the Tavascan, the Born, or the upcoming Raval in major coastal metropolises like Los Angeles or Miami. However, it also included hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles, offering high-performance, bold, and passionate plug-in hybrids, hence the importance of its partnership with Penske. Cupra had even called on a leading figure to lead the brand during its arrival in the United States: German Bernhard Bauer. For the past ten years, he had been head of Seat and Cupra in Germany, where he consolidated truly spectacular sales growth. In fact, Bauer was one of the architects of Cupra's positioning as an aspirational brand, turning it into the fastest-growing brand in Germany over the past five years. Despite a context of widespread decline, it has continued to grow by 67.6% during the first six months of the year.

The German growth model, based on aspirational positioning, high-performance technological vehicles, and a distinctive brand identity linked to social and sporting events and an active urban lifestyle, was the one Cupra sought to replicate in the United States. It remains to be seen whether the future social, economic, and industrial context will create the right environment to facilitate Cupra's definitive entry into the US market.