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 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.

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 Volkswagen Group foresees more layoffs. If last March the company announced that it would cut around 50,000 jobs in Germany, the German media Manager Magazin reported this Friday that the group plans to reduce 100,000 workers worldwide in the next five years. In addition, the group also has in mind closing up to four plants in the Germanic country – Hannover, Zwickau, Emden, and Neckarsulm – and reducing its investments by 15%, to approximately 130 billion euros. Currently, Volkswagen's workforce is around 625,000 employees. Thus, if the staff reduction goes ahead, it could affect one in six employees of the Wolfsburg company.

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.

In 1998, the then CEO of the Volkswagen group, the German Ferdinand Piëch, decided to buy the Bugatti brand to integrate it into the Volkswagen group under the umbrella of the Porsche subsidiary. Piëch's idea was to buy the brand to manufacture the fastest and most powerful car ever made and he set about the project of the Bugatti Veyron, the first combustion car to exceed 1,001 hp of power and with a top speed of over 400 km/h. In 2016, Bugatti went a step further with the Chiron, an even more beastly and exclusive model, of which it has made exclusive limited series sold at seven-figure prices. However, the Bugatti brand has been far from profitable for several years, despite selling editions of its models that became the most expensive production car in history at the time, as in the case of the Chiron La Voiture Noire, a special unit sold for a final price of over eleven million euros. Despite selling cars at astronomical prices, Bugatti's development, design, production, and marketing costs were higher than the income obtained, and the brand's existence within the Volkswagen group was only explained by a matter of prestige.Since 2021 and for the last five years, the Volkswagen Group has managed Bugatti through its high-performance subsidiary Porsche and an industrial agreement with the Croatian brand Rimac. Rimac is an electric car manufacturer that controls 55% of Bugatti, while Porsche controlled the remaining 45%. However, in turn, the Volkswagen Group controlled 20% of Rimac's shareholding, thus guaranteeing its decision-making power over Bugatti and leveraging the know-how and electric technologies of the Rimac brand, specialized in high-power electric sports cars.An advertised sale

This week Porsche has confirmed the sale of its 45% stake in Bugatti and 20% in Rimac to the North American investment fund HOF Capital, based in New York, for an undisclosed amount. This is due to Porsche's complicated financial situation (a few days ago it announced that it would have to lay off 500 more employees in Germany to balance its accounts), which has led to the sale of its stake in Bugatti when the first serious offer appeared on the brand's management's table.Porsche's electrification strategy has been a mixed success for the German brand, as it has invested heavily in its electric models, such as the Taycan or the new Macan. However, the brand's customers have not yet decided to make the leap to electrification, which has led to a repositioning of the brand's roadmap, which has just announced that it will develop a Macan with a gasoline engine, in a clear move aimed at regaining presence and sales volume in its segment.

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Volkswagen has finally presented the ID Polo, the electric evolution of the brand's urban utility vehicle, which will be manufactured on line 1 of the Martorell plant, in parallel with the Cupra Raval. And it is that the Cupra Raval and this ID Polo are, in reality, the same car with different bodies and interiors, as they share a modular platform, engines and the rest of the mechanical systems. Unlike the Raval, however, this new Volkswagen ID Polo will have a base price of 24,900 euros, which places it slightly below the Catalan model.

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Just twenty years ago, coinciding with the Tokyo Motor Show, Volkswagen presented the expensive concept or EcoRacer prototype, a type vehicle roadster –a convertible, rear-wheel drive, and with compact dimensions and weight—which the brand came very close to putting into production. In fact, it's not surprising that at that time mainstream brands were introducing small, sporty, convertible models. Opel manufactured a similar vehicle called the Speedster, Mazda the famous MX-5, and Seat dreamed of models like the Bolero or TangoBut what truly set the Volkswagen prototype apart was its engine, a rarity that would have made it a unicorn in the automotive world.

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The Spanish brands Seat and Cupra, which belong to the German Volkswagen Group, saw their operating profit plummet to just one million euros in 2025, down from 633 million euros in 2024, a 99.8% decrease. This figure was revealed on Tuesday during the Volkswagen Group's results presentation, ahead of the detailed results for Seat and Cupra to be released on Thursday. The decline, as Seat already indicated in its third-quarter results presentation, is due to tariffs on the Cupra Tavascán model, which is manufactured in China, as well as higher product costs, despite an increase in sales volume. Seat and Cupra's revenue improved to 15.272 billion euros (+5.1% compared to 2024). And car sales for both brands rose last year to 657,000 units (+3.1% compared to 2014), figures that include the Audi A1 (manufactured in Martorell) and thanks to the success of Cupra models, especially the electric Born and Tavascán.

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First agreement between Brussels and an automotive company to circumvent tariffs on electric cars manufactured in China. The European Commission announced on Tuesday that it has reached an agreement with the Volkswagen Group to remove the 20.7% tariffs previously applied to the Cupra Tavascan model. These customs duties dealt a severe blow to Seat, and the profits of the Catalan-based company plummeted by more than 90% last year. As a result, Cupra Tavascan cars—designed in Catalonia but manufactured at the Chinese plant in Anhui—can now be imported throughout the European Union without tariffs. However, the import volumes and agreed minimum prices have not been made public for confidentiality reasons.

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Following the earthquake caused by the emissions scandal, or Dieselgate, which engulfed the Volkswagen Group in 2015, just ten years ago, the Lower Saxony-based brand developed an ambitious plan for the complete electrification of its range. It did so by fully embracing—perhaps with the zeal of a convert—the electric car as a beacon of salvation and a guiding light during one of the darkest periods in its history.

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Seat and its owner, the German consortium Volkswagen (VW), have taken the latest step in the electrification of the Martorell factory, one of the hubs The most important industrial sector in Catalonia. The launch of the company's battery assembly plant represents the realization of a clear commitment to promoting sustainable mobility. The heart of vehicles is no longer the combustion engine, but the battery. With China's growing power in the market with hybrid and plug-in hybrid cars, European companies have had to accelerate their efforts to regain ground.

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Since Marc Murtra joined Telefónica, the company has been undergoing a flurry of internal changes. This week, the news was the replacement of the company's long-time director, Javier de Paz, who will remain with the company in other roles, but not on the board. Likewise, Mediapro's long-time icon, Tatxo Benet, is also leaving the audiovisual giant and will be replaced by Sergio Oslé, the former president of Telefónica Spain, as its executive chairman.

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