SEAT to spend $3.2 billion converting main factory to BEV production hub for VW Group
Thirty years ago to the day after opening its main production facility in Martorell, Spain, SEAT S.A. announced it will use the site as home to its largest transformation to electrification yet. Following an investment of three billion euros (~$3.2B), SEAT intends to lead development and become a small BEV production hub for a number of brands under the Volkswagen Group umbrella.
SEAT S.A. is a Spanish automaker founded in 1950 and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Volkswagen Group since 1986. The name is actually an acronym that stands for “Sociedad Española de Automóviles de Turismo,” but SEAT rolls off the tongue a bit more quickly.
To this day, SEAT operates out of its headquarters and main production footprint in Martorell about 20 miles outside of Barcelona. The Spanish automaker relayed that it has produced over 12 million vehicles across 45 models at the facility, exporting them to more than 70 different countries.
To this point, SEAT itself only sells one BEV – the Cupra Born – but it is built by Volkswagen in Zwickau, Germany alongside its ID.3 twin. That should change by 2025. As the Martorell factory celebrates 30 years since its inauguration in 1993, SEAT has announced a large investment to (at least start) going electric.
SEAT to (partially) pivot to EV production, R&D by 2025
According to a release from SEAT today, it will use the investment of three billion euros to transition its Martorell facility from combustion to electric in all areas – “research and development, production and logistics, commercial and people, and organization.”
The site’s main factory is expected to begin production of fully-electric vehicles for multiple brands in Volkswagen Group by 2025 as part of a strategic plan consisting of five main pillars:
- People and organization
- Electrification and product
- Production end to end (E2E)
- Digitalization
- Sustainability
SEAT’s transformation parallel’s parent company Volkswagen Group’s electrification goals and those outlined in Spain’s Future: Fast Forward project. Larger plans include the electrification of SEAT’s Pamplona factory in addition to Martorell, a new battery gigafactory in Valencia, and the implementation of a complete supplier ecosystem. The country-wide project is expecting to positively impact the Spanish economy with more than 21,000 million euros.
With the investment, SEAT intends to turn Martorell into a smart factory and educate its employees on the exciting new world of electric vehicle production. Beginning in 2025, SEAT intends to become a main production hub for Volkswagen Group and a vital part of Spain’s EV value chain. SEAT and Cupra CEO Wayne Griffiths spoke:
Over the past 30 years, SEAT S.A. has created employment and boosted industrial growth in our country and there is even more planned for the future. Our ambition is to produce electric vehicles made in Spain from 2025 and, as part of this transformation, Martorell will also manufacture the Cupra UrbanRebel. Thanks to this project, the most important for our company in the years ahead, our employees and the factory will begin a new era.
The UrbanRebel isn’t expected to arrive until 2025 anyway, so SEAT’s transition to EV production should tie nicely. There has been no word on whether SEAT will inherit Cupra Born production from VW, but it would make more sense to keep it in Germany with the ID.3 and save production space for other small BEVs in the group.
Again, since SEAT only has one EV for sale and doesn’t build it in Spain, we’d expect the automaker to continue production of its combustion vehicles at the Martorell facility. With rising demand in all-electric models, SEAT’s EV production footprint could easily continue to grow in Montorell and eventually usurp combustion vehicle production altogether. Let’s hope.
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If you’ve ever wondered what happens when you combine a fruit cart, a cargo bike, and a Piaggio Ape all in one vehicle, now you’ve got your answer. I submit, for your approval, this week’s feature for the Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week column – and it’s a beautiful doozie.
Feast your eyes on this salad slinging, coleslaw cruising, tuber taxiing produce chariot!
I think this electric vegetable trike might finally scratch the itch long felt by many of my readers. It seems every time I cover an electric trike, even the really cool ones, I always get commenters poo-poo-ing it for having two wheels in the rear instead of two wheels in the front. Well, here you go, folks!
Designed with two front wheels for maximum stability, this trike keeps your cucumbers in check through every corner. Because trust me, you don’t want to hit a pothole and suddenly be juggling peaches like you’re in Cirque du Soleil: Farmers Market Edition.
To avoid the extra cost of designing a linked steering system for a pair of front wheels, the engineers who brought this salad shuttle to life simply side-stepped that complexity altogether by steering the entire fixed front end. I’ve got articulating electric tractors that steer like this, and so if it works for a several-ton work machine, it should work for a couple hundred pounds of cargo bike.
Featuring a giant cargo bed up front with four cascading fruit baskets set up for roadside sales, this cargo bike is something of a blank slate. Sure, you could monetize grandma’s vegetable garden, or you could fill it with your own ideas and concoctions. Our exceedingly talented graphics wizard sees it as the perfect coffee and pastry e-bike for my new startup, The Handlebarista, and I’m not one to argue. Basically, the sky is the limit with a blank slate bike like this!
Sure, the quality doesn’t quite match something like a fancy Tern cargo bike. The rim brakes aren’t exactly confidence-inspiring, but at least there are three of them. And if they should all give out, or just not quite slow you down enough to avoid that quickly approaching brick wall, then at least you’ve got a couple hundred pounds of tomatoes as a tasty crumple zone.
The electrical system does seem a bit underpowered. With a 36V battery and a 250W motor, I don’t know if one-third of a horsepower is enough to haul a full load to the local farmer’s market. But I guess if the weight is a bit much for the little motor, you could always do some snacking along the way. On the other hand, all the pictures seem to show a non-electric version. So if this cart is presumably mobile on pedal power alone, then that extra motor assist, however small, is going to feel like a very welcome guest.
The $950 price is presumably for the electric version, since that’s what’s in the title of the listing, though I wouldn’t get too excited just yet. I’ve bought a LOT of stuff on Alibaba, including many electric vehicles, and the too-good-to-be-true price is always exactly that. In my experience, you can multiply the Alibaba price by 3-4x to get the actual landed price for things like these. Even so, $3,000-$4,000 wouldn’t be a terrible price, considering a lot of electric trikes stateside already cost that much and don’t even come with a quad-set of vegetable baskets on board!
I should also put my normal caveat in here about not actually buying one of these. Please, please don’t try to buy one of these awesome cargo e-trikes. This is a silly, tongue-in-cheek weekend column where I scour the ever-entertaining underbelly of China’s massive e-commerce site Alibaba in search of fun, quirky, and just plain awesomely weird electric vehicles. While I’ve successfully bought several fun things on the platform, I’ve also gotten scammed more than once, so this is not for the timid or the tight-budgeted among us.
That isn’t to say that some of my more stubborn readers haven’t followed in my footsteps before, ignoring my advice and setting out on their own wild journey. But please don’t be the one who risks it all and gets nothing in return. Don’t say I didn’t warn you; this is the warning.
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Environment
Podcast: Trump/GOP go after EV/solar, Tesla, Ford, GM EV sales, Electrek Formula Sun, and more
In the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy. In this week’s episode, we discuss Trump’s Big Beautiful bill becoming law and going after EVs and solar, Tesla, Ford, and GM EV sales, Electrek Formula Sun, and more
Today’s episode is brought to you by Bosch Mobility Aftermarket—A global leader and trusted provider of automotive aftermarket parts. To celebrate Amazon Prime Day July 8th through 11th, Bosch Mobility is offering exclusive savings on must-have auto parts and tools. Learn more here.
The show is live every Friday at 4 p.m. ET on Electrek’s YouTube channel.
As a reminder, we’ll have an accompanying post, like this one, on the site with an embedded link to the live stream. Head to the YouTube channel to get your questions and comments in.
After the show ends at around 5 p.m. ET, the video will be archived on YouTube and the audio on all your favorite podcast apps:
We now have a Patreon if you want to help us avoid more ads and invest more in our content. We have some awesome gifts for our Patreons and more coming.
Here are a few of the articles that we will discuss during the podcast:
- Electrek FSGP 2025: New teams, new cars, same solar spirit
- Congress votes to send 2 million US jobs to China, increase deficit, energy costs
- Tesla (TSLA) confirms 384,000 deliveries in Q2 2025, right on expectations
- Tesla prototype sparks speculation: a Model Y, maybe slightly smaller
- Tesla launches Oasis Supercharger with solar farm and off-grid batteries
- Tesla unveils its LFP battery factory, claims it’s almost ready
- Here’s why Ford’s electric vehicle sales crashed by nearly a third in Q2
- The Chevy Equinox EV is GM’s breakout star, but that’s not the only surprise
- Xpeng launches G7, a new Tesla Model Y competitor for just $27,000
Here’s the live stream for today’s episode starting at 4:00 p.m. ET (or the video after 5 p.m. ET:
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