Seat counts on Tarraco to retain rich customers

TARRAGONA, Spain —Seat's third SUV will become the company's flagship model. It will be a crucial addition to retain more affluent customers and increase margins at Volkswagen Group’s Spanish subsidiary.

The Tarraco, named after the Spanish city of Tarragona, is a five- and seven-seat SUV that sits on VW Group’s MQB A long-wheelbase architecture, which also underpins the VW Tiguan Allspace compact SUV. VW will build the Tarraco for Seat in the German parent’s hometown plant of Wolfsburg starting at the beginning of next year.

Thanks to the Tarraco, Seat may be able to retain customers expanding their families but who now look elsewhere because the Spanish brand’s largest offering is in the compact segment with the Leon hatchback and wagon and Ateca compact SUV. At 4735mm long, the Tarraco sits at the top of the compact SUV and crossover segment. It is 35mm longer than the Allspace and just 65mm shorter than the 4,800mm-long Touareg large SUV.

Seat says it has the youngest customers in Europe at about 43 years old on average, eight to 10 years younger than those of other brands. But as they became more affluent, those customers were leaving the brand.

“The real problem [at Seat] was that as our customers matured, started families and increased their disposable income, we did not have the larger vehicles needed to retain them,” Seat President Luca de Meo told Automotive New Europe a year ago when he confirmed the addition of a larger SUV that became the Tarraco.

“The Tarraco is part of our 3.3 billion euro [about $3.8 billion] investment between 2015 and 2019 in the company’s future and the range of vehicles we offer,” de Meo said in statement.

Seat's global sales rose 22 percent to 383,900 vehicles through August.

Pushed by strong sales of its two SUVs, the compact Ateca and subcompact Arona, Seat improved its operating profit in the first half by 63 percent to 212 million euros ($247 million) from 130 million ($152 million) in the same period the year before.

The Tarraco, set to become Seat’s flagship and thus its most expensive model, is expected to offer a further boost to the company’s profitability.

Tough competition

Sales in Europe's compact SUV and crossover segment grew 22 percent in the first half to 1.21 million units. The Tarraco will compete with seven-seat models such as the Peugeot 5008, which ranked ninth in sales with 44,633 units through June. The Nissan Qashqai leads the segment with 134,547 units, followed closely by the VW Tiguan at 129,237 units, data from JATO Dynamics show.

In the quest for more affluent buyers of compact SUVs, the Tarraco will borrow most of the technologies offered by its VW brand siblings — such as lane-keeping assistance and forward collison warning, including bicycle and pedestrian detection, which are standard in Europe. Available as options are systems such as blind-spot detection, traffic-sign recognition, traffic-jam assist, adaptive cruise control, light assist and emergency assist are available as options. The model also offers emergency calling, precrash assist and rollover detection as standard equipment.

On the user interface side, the Tarraco is equipped with a 10.25-inch digital instrument panel, while an 8-inch floating human machine interface screen is the gateway to Seat’s suite of connectivity options. When equipped with the 8-inch Navigation Plus package, this SUV will be the first Seat model to feature gesture-control functions.

The Tarraco will debut with three engines: On the gasoline side, a 150-hp four-cylinder, 1.5-liter TSI unit mated to a six-speed manual transmission and front-wheel drive or a 190-hp 2.0-liter mated to a seven-speed DSG dual-clutch gearbox and 4Drive four-wheel-drive. On the diesel side, a 2.0-liter TDI unit is offered in 150- and 190-hp configurations. The 150 hp is available either with front-wheel drive and six-speed manual transmission or with 4wd and DSG automatic. The 190 hp comes only with DSG and 4wd.

The SUV will have its public debut at the Paris auto show on Oct. 2.