The Spanish government is convinced that the Seat brand will survive the cuts being studied by the Volkswagen group. In an intervention at the Fòrum Europa Tribuna Catalunya, the Secretary of State for Industry, Jordi Garcia Brustenga, has assured that he has "zero doubts" about its continuity, and has asked the German group to continue investing in the Catalan company and launching "new models." Garcia Brustenga also highlighted the "intangible" value of Seat in the territory. The future of the historic brand is up in the air after the company itself admitted last week that it is analyzing the possibility of eliminating it starting in 2030.

The academic year has begun with alarms ringing in the unions, but also in the public administration, after the Volkswagen group put the Seat brand in play, which has placed the Martorell factory in the crosshairs. "Martorell will not disappear," stated the secretary general of CCOO, Unai Sordo, this Monday morning during an intervention at the Ateneo de Madrid. The message seeks to provide reassurance, especially to the employees, and the president of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, and the Minister of Economy, Carlos Cuerpo, also joined in this Monday. In fact, they have all rushed to defend the Seat brand: "It is historic," Sordo affirmed. "It is a product that must continue to be championed," he reiterated.

The announcement of adjustments and staff cuts at the Volkswagen group last week – the first of this magnitude in the 89-year history of the brand– will be accompanied by a historic restructuring of the models manufactured by the group to reduce production costs and maintain the competitiveness of the brands.

In 2018, with Luca de Meo as president and Wayne Griffiths as vice president of marketing and sales, Seat took the step: it launched a new brand, Cupra. Only two years later, Griffiths, already president of Seat, said that the new brand would close that year, 2020, with a turnover of 1 billion euros, practically 10% of the entire group. We journalists received it with skepticism, but that is how it was. From that moment on, Cupra has not stopped growing. And last year, in 2025, the new brand already sold more cars than the historic –it is over 70 years old– Seat.

It is not at all strange that the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa; the Minister of Industry, Jordi Hereu, and the leader of the UGT, Pepe Álvarez, among others, have hastened to highlight the importance of Seat not only in industrial terms but also in terms of employment. In a changing world where industries that seemed to have their perpetuity guaranteed find themselves in full transformation (in the automotive sector, from the combustion engine to the electric vehicle), the Volkswagen (VW) group is considering the future of this historic brand, which has been part of the Catalan and Spanish economy since the 50s of the last century. However, over the last few years, the brand has been losing ground in favor of a newer and more modern one, Cupra, created in 2018 as an independent brand.

The cuts at the Volkswagen group have already been approved by the supervisory board. However, it is not clear what will happen to the group's Spanish brand, Seat. While the German press reported on Thursday that the intention is for the Seat brand to disappear by 2029 at the latest, this Friday the Martorell-based company claimed its role within the Volkswagen group, but without clarifying in any case what its future will be.

The Volkswagen Group's supervisory board approved the company's restructuring plan this Friday evening, which will involve the elimination of 50,000 jobs in Germany and the possible closure of four factories in the country—Emden, Zwickau, Hanover, and Neckarsulm—by 2030. The meeting's resolution was expected for this Friday, but the company advanced the result on Thursday evening. The group, however, did not explain tonight what the future of the Seat brand, controlled by Volkswagen, will be. The CEO of the Volkswagen Group, Oliver Blume, in a statement, celebrated the unanimous approval of the restructuring plan as a "decisive" signal for the company's future and announced million-euro investments for the coming years. The supervisory board includes representatives from the founding shareholder families, unions, and the government of Lower Saxony.

The Volkswagen Group confirms its first major workforce reduction in Germany since its founding 89 years ago. After the automotive company announced its plans to reduce at least 100,000 jobs globally, all bad omens were confirmed this Tuesday, especially for the company's workers in the Germanic country. The company will dispense with approximately 50,000 employees in Germany, its main production center with a dozen plants and more than 250,000 workers.

The Catalan car manufacturer Seat is experiencing a sweet moment amidst a complicated period for its parent company, the German group Volkswagen, which is considering severe staff cuts. Between January and June, the Martorell-based company tripled its operating profit, reaching 122 million euros, as reported this Friday in a statement.

The Volkswagen Group is experiencing a severe crisis and is preparing to transform itself. Europe's leading car manufacturer convened the twenty members of its supervisory board this Thursday to discuss the restructuring plan designed by the company's CEO, Oliver Blume. Although the details discussed at the meeting are still unknown, according to a statement from the group, its plans include halving the range of its models. Currently, across all brands, Volkswagen's vehicle range is configured with around 150 models.

The German automotive group Volkswagen reported this Thursday that it will reduce its production capacities by 25% to 9 million vehicles annually to adapt them to the global market situation and increased competition. The company, which has an installed capacity of 12 million vehicles, will also gradually reduce the supply of its car models by up to 50%, concentrating on the most attractive market segments. Currently, the group is configured with around 150 models, across all brands.

The automotive sector is undergoing a major transformation in Europe, and its effects are shaking the continent's major companies. Faced with this scenario, the giant Volkswagen has begun to draw up a restructuring plan that foresees cutting up to 100,000 jobs worldwide and also includes the closure of four plants located in Germany, as reported last week by the German media "Manager Magazin". This situation has set off alarms in Martorell: the Seat plant – a subsidiary of the German multinational – could be affected and, as company sources explain to the ARA, there is a feeling among the workforce that this will be the case, whether directly or indirectly.

The automotive industry is one of the main industries in our country. In recent years, however, the sector has undergone very significant changes, and has transformed. Electrification and the emergence of Chinese cars have revolutionized the vehicle market, and manufacturers are having to adapt at breakneck speed. We talk about it with Josep Maria Vall (Barcelona, 1947), president of the Cluster of the Automotive Industry of Catalonia (CIAC).

This Wednesday, line 1 of workshop 10 at the Seat factory in Martorell has begun the series assembly of the Cupra Raval and the Volkswagen ID Polo, the first 100% electric cars produced at the plant. The launch of production materializes the great efforts the factory has made to electrify: 300 million euros have been invested in the Catalan plant to set up a battery assembly factory, and, furthermore, one of the three production lines has also been adapted to be able to manufacture electric vehicles. In recent years, no 100% electric vehicles were manufactured in Catalonia, although one was produced until the Nissan plant in the Zona Franca of Barcelona closed, the Nissan e-NV200 van.

Seat has gone more than 7 years without presenting any new model, and its current range is limited to the Arona, Ibiza, and Leon, after having stopped manufacturing the Ateca and Tarraco SUVs, and previously having also canceled the continuity of the Alhambra minivan and the Mii urban electric, among others.During recent years, the financial and industrial efforts of the Volkswagen group have pivoted around the new Cupra brand, which has concentrated new models and electrified versions as a market consolidation strategy. The result of this industrial commitment has been clearly successful, as Cupra has become one of the commercial pillars of the Volkswagen group, but it has postponed electrification and the arrival of new models for Seat, the rational, practical, and more or less affordable brand of the group.A leadership in Spain difficult to give up

Despite having a very short commercial offer, Seat is capable of placing the Ibiza and Arona on the lists of best-selling cars in Spain every year, and of maintaining a good volume of sales in European markets such as the United Kingdom, Italy, France, Belgium or Germany, among others. In this regard, in the framework of an interview with the British medium Autocar, the new CEO of Seat, Markus Haupt, has confirmed that he will develop new mild hybrid or light hybrid versions of the Arona and Ibiza to reduce consumption and emissions of its models through a practical and simple approach, especially in a complicated horizon due to the tightening of European regulations on CO₂ emissions.What Seat will not yet have is an affordable urban electric car manufactured under the brand's logo. At the moment, the Volkswagen group prefers to bet on the Cupra Raval or Volkswagen ID Polo to generate a commercial margin that justifies the necessary investments to manufacture electric cars. Although these models are manufactured in Martorell, the group's management wants to wait a few more years before taking the step of electrifying the Seat brand. The costs of development and production of new vehicles, the production cost of batteries, and especially the scarce demand for electric cars in Seat's price segment and buyer profile would hardly justify a new electric vehicle with the Seat emblem.In this regard, the future of Seat is secured until 2029 or 2030, when, as Haupt himself points out, "the future of the brand will need to be evaluated" in the context of "a new scenario with the entry into force of new regulations affecting combustion vehicles". Until then, however, the CEO states that "Seat will continue to bet on the continuity of combustion models that are still commercially successful".Differentiation strategy with Cupra

Although Cupra was born as a sporty and aspirational appendix of Seat, the new CEO of the brand is clear: “We need to deepen the differentiation of Seat and Cupra”, to reinforce with the confirmation that “we will not see a Raval with the Seat logo”.Cupra's new strategy involves differentiating its product from Seat cars, and in this regard, we will never again see shared models with Seat and Cupra versions, as in the case of the Ateca or the Leon. “That was an intelligent and appropriate decision at the time –affirms Haupt–, but it is no longer useful if we want to consolidate Cupra's takeoff as a brand with a completely independent product portfolio, far from Seat.”

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Seat-Cupra has managed to turn around its results in the first quarter of this year. Despite a decrease in car sales and turnover, the company achieved an operating profit of 43 million euros, 38 million more than in the same period last year, as the company reported this Thursday.

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The Seat Martorell plant today closes a fifteen-year relationship with Audi with the end of the production of the Audi A1. In fact, relations between the two brands of the Volkswagen group in Baix Llobregat are older, as they started in 2009, with the start of production of the Seat Exeo, an aspirational saloon with a three-box body and estate or station wagon that was actually an Audi A4 from the previous generation, called with the internal nomenclature B7. The very good work of those in Martorell with the Exeo led the Volkswagen Group's management to trust Martorell to manufacture the Audi Q3 SUV there between 2011 and 2018, before a new strategic repositioning saw the VAG Group's top brass assign the manufacture of the Audi A1 there, a model that has been current between 2018 and this 2026.

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The day on the calendar is Thursday, April 9. Cupra will present the Raval model, the first 100% electric car designed and manufactured at the Seat plant in Martorell. It is the tangible result of a Volkswagen group plan to electrify mobility in Spain and which, despite presenting its first fruit, still holds many future uncertainties.

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It has been six years since Seat presented its latest model, the fourth generation of the Seat Leon, probably the best car manufactured by Seat. Since then, however, those from Baix Llobregat have focused all their commercial efforts on the Cupra brand, which over the last few years has presented several new models (Born, Raval, Terramar, Tavascan, and Formentor). This policy of differentiating the Cupra brand from Seat has reached the point where even the Cupra Leon has received specific aesthetic updates to distinguish it ostentatiously from the model bearing the Seat logo.The current Seat range is based on the best-sellers Arona and Ibiza, the already veteran Ateca and the León, the only Seat with a plug-in hybrid version and eligible for an ecological sticker. Along the way, the Martorell brand has lost important models such as the Tarraco, has renounced the Seat Mó sustainable mobility division and agreements to manufacture scooters with Silence, and finally, the brand has not opted for mild hybrid or mild hybrid mechanics to improve the consumption and emissions of the Arona, Ateca and Ibiza, the brand's great commercial strongholds.Although Seat's commercial range is starting to age, the green numbers it presents at the end of each commercial year have allowed it to avoid – for the moment – the threat of closing shifts and production lines, as has happened with other brands in the Volkswagen group. Seat, despite everything and against all odds, is profitable and this has been, until now, its lifeline.The dismissal of Wayne Griffiths, a supporter of the Seat brand in Wolfsburg, and the impossibility of opening new lines of financing for new models, raise some questions regarding the brand's continuity. The leadership of the Volkswagen group is decisively committed to Cupra, and in fact, it is Seat's sports brand that has received technological and mechanical improvements from Volkswagen, while Seat does not have (and probably will not have) any electric car in its range. Griffiths' successor at the helm of Seat, Markus Haupt, now has the difficult mission of leading a new direction with goals, achievement indicators, and new horizons for Seat when it is not a priority brand for the Volkswagen group.The group's Cinderella

Seat has historically been a brand condemned to be the Cinderella of the Volkswagen group, far from the centers of power and decision in Wolfsburg and little valued in relation to Skoda, Audi or Volkswagen itself. In fact, Seat has never premiered any mechanics or technology from the group since it became part of the orbit of the Volkswagen group during the 1980s, but the current situation, with a long five-year wait to present new models (and probably some more years will still pass) is absolutely unprecedented.Following the outbreak of the Dieselgate case and the emissions scandal that fully implicated the Volkswagen group, the Germans decided to make a historic change of course, and practically overnight became a manufacturer fully focused on electric cars. In fact, the group has not introduced any mechanical improvements or new gasoline or diesel engines since 2019. It has maintained existing combustion powertrains and has bet on new fully electric models. More than six years later, however, the electric car market is still not fully mature, and Volkswagen has had to adjust the price of its new electric cars considerably to make them competitive against the great Chinese offensive.In this context of stagnation of new combustion engine models and a firm commitment to the electric car, the group's management has shown how Seat is not an industrial or commercial priority, and has relegated it to the only brand in the group without a fully electric car. The Volkswagen group's strategy has been to offer electric models with other features (and high prices) at Porsche or Audi, to position Skoda and Volkswagen as more or less accessible intermediate options for the general public, and to entrust Cupra with the role of an aspirational and sporty brand, which leaves Seat outside the brand's electrification roadmap.Seat is now facing one of the key moments in its history: it is seeking its own identity within the Volkswagen group and investments in research and development of new models that must serve to guarantee the brand's continuity. The Volkswagen group is very hesitant to comment on a possible expiry date for the brand and its total conversion into Cupra, but it has also not presented any future plan that includes new models (electric or not) for Seat. With an eye on the entry into force of emission limits for car manufacturers in 2027, it is difficult to imagine that Seat will be able to reverse the current situation and develop a new product range capable of homologating the new emission limits set by the European Union.Meanwhile, Seat continues to offer a range of products with reliable and proven combustion engines, practically perfect from a technical point of view, but which cannot compete in terms of consumption and emissions with its more modern rivals. Time is running out for the Martorell brand, which proudly and stoically maintains its market share, with the Ibiza and Arona bearing the brunt of Seat's sales and keeping the company's numbers in the black at the end of each fiscal year.

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Seat-Cupra achieved a turnover of 15,115 million euros in 2025, 5.1% more than the previous year and a record figure for the company. During the past year it sold 586,300 cars5% more than the previous year and also a record figure. But despite these good sales and revenue results, the company's net profit remained at only 40.9 million euros, whereas a year earlier it had exceeded 522 million euros.

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