VW's Cupra brand aims for 500,000 sales by 2025

TERRAMAR, Spain -- Volkswagen Group's Cupra brand has set a target of 500,000 sales a year by 2025 -- more than the combined 2021 sales of Cupra and Seat, VW's other Spanish brand.

Cupra sold 79,327 cars in 2021, with the Formentor compact crossover the most popular model with 54,595 units sold.

Cupra had said earlier that it plans to double sales in 2022 to 160,000 units, and for revenue to more than double to 5 billion euros ($5.3 billion) from 2.2 billion in 2021.

"By 2025, Cupra's aim is to deliver 500,000 cars per year and push forward with its international expansion into new markets as well as entering new segments," Cupra/Seat CEO Wayne Griffiths said at a strategy event at the Terramar racetrack in Spain.

The new growth targets for Cupra add to speculation about the future of Seat, which sells lower-priced models than Cupra. Cupra became its own brand in 2018 under former CEO Luca de Meo, now head of Renault Group, after starting as a Seat high-performance trim line.

Griffiths said last year that both brands would continue "until the end of the decade" and added that whatever happens after that will depend on how fast the EV market develops.

To reach 500,000 sales in 2025, Cupra would need to more than triple its 2022 target in three years. To do so, it will rely on an expanded product range, an extended sales network and additional markets.

To expand its sales network, Cupra aims to double the number of Cupra City Garages, which are company-owned showrooms. Australia is one of the new markets Cupra plans to enter, but Griffiths has not mentioned any others.

The current Cupra range includes the Formentor, the Leon compact hatchback, the Ateca compact SUV and the Born full-electric compact car. Three new models are to be launched by 2025:

• The Tavascan (2024), a full-electric SUV first shown as a concept in 2019. The Tavascan "will remain faithful to the 2019 concept car," Cupra said in a release, adding that it will "capture the vision of contemporary electrification" and "globalize the brand, taking it to new markets."
• The Terramar (2024), an SUV that will be available in both combustion-engine and plug-in hybrid versions. It will be built at VW Group's factory in Gyor, Hungary, alongside the Audi Q3 Sportback on which it is based. It will be 4500-mm long and will be positioned between the Seat Ateca compact SUV and Tarraco midsize SUV. Cupra says the plug-in hybrid version will have about 100 km (62 miles) of electric-only range.
• The UrbanRebel, a front-wheel-drive, electric-only sporty small hatchback to be launched in 2025. The car will sit on a shortened version of VW Group's MEB platform; it will share its underpinnings with a VW brand model (potentially named the ID2) and a Skoda nameplate, although there will be no Seat version. It will be 4030-mm long. A 166-kiilowatt electric motor will allow it to accelerate from 0 to 100 kph (62 mph) in 6.9 seconds, with a maximum range of 440 km.

"The UrbanRebel will be the biggest project for our company in the upcoming years, since it is key for our transformation as a fully electric brand," Cupra Vice President of R&D Werner Tietz said in a news release. 

At the annual Seat and Cupra press conference in February, Griffiths had mentioned a fourth upcoming model to complete the Cupra range, without giving any detail. That model was not mentioned at the Terramar event.