Category: Seat

Seat has revealed its future plans to its car dealers

Seat will unveil the next-generation Ibiza at the next Geneva Motor Show next March. The small car is part of an attempt by Seat to spearhead a new sportier design due to appear on all future models. Representing roughly 40% of Seat’s total volume, the Ibiza is critical to company’s ambition to sell more cars annually.
The new Ibiza will share its inner structure, powertrains and suspension layout, with the Skoda Fabia in order to cut cost. It will be offered in both three and five-door hatchback. The three-door version will arrive later and will have a unique exterior styling similar to a coupé.
In 2009, Seat will launch the new Toledo which will try to consign the current model to oblivion as it is an object of fun to competitors and consumers. The replacement model will be offered in two variants: a saloon and an estate. The two cars will be sports-biased and will struggle fiercely for the pie of the saloon market, which has been sluggish for years.
That same year, Seat will launch its first SUV which will take styling cues from the Tribu concept car and will be engineered for on-road manners.
Source: Automotive News
December 11, 2007
Martin Winterkorn plans to stay CEO until 2018

In a recent interview Volkswagen group CEO Martin Winterkorn said that he planned to stay until the 2018 goal has been reached. In other words, he will leave his position only if Volkswagen catches up with Toyota or if the board fires him. He also said that he wants VW in 2010 to be where Toyota is today. It means that the group will have to sell 3.3 million more cars by 2010. Quite a challenge for the group!
In order to achieve such an impressive target, Martin Winterkorn says the company will focus on improving its productivity by 10%. He revealed that each Toyota vehicle has a cost advantage of €3,000/2,155-4,000€/£2,875 over Volkswagen. Martin Winterkorn forgets to mention that the minimum wage -700€/£503 is lower in Japan than in Germany. it is also rumoured that Toyota employs Chinese and Korean workers who don’t require the Japanese company to provide health insurance. Beyond the Toyota production system, the Japanse social system might also help Toyota to build car at a lesser cost.
Vokswagen CEO also said that German design and perfectionism will make the difference in overcoming Toyota. It is true that Toyota fails mainly on the design side as almost all Toyota cars features a dull styling, but Volkswagen models are not better, except for Audi.
Volkswagen also plans to unveil more than 20 new models over the next three years and will invest £20 billion between 2008 and 2010 in product development and manufacturing.
December 11, 2007
6 millionth car for Seat Martorell

Open in 1993, the Martorell Seat factory, located in Spain, produced 6 million vehicles. The car is an Ibiza Ecomotive which features the 79bhp 1.4-litre TDI engine.
Martorell factory started to produce cars in 1993. If the production lines rolled off two cars, the Ibiza and the Córdoba at the beginning, today it produces all Seat models, except the Alhambra built in the Palmela factory in Portugal. Initially designed for production of 1,500 units per day, it currently puts out 2,000 cars daily. The Martorell plant is considered as the most advanced factory in Spain and regularly tops the productivity charts in Europe.
December 5, 2007
VW Group to develop four new platforms

In an interview given to Automotive News Europe, VW brand board member for development, Dr. Ulrich Hackenberg revealed that Volkswagen group will release four new platforms in the coming years in order to achieve the 2018 target. With those new platforms, the German carmaker expects to reduce its cost by 40% thanks to components shared between the platforms and development times by one year.
The most important platform will be the MQB which will underpin up to 6 million vehicles every year. The platform will be flexible enough to equip a large range of vehicles from small cars to upper-premium models. According to some insiders, the MQB platform will be used as in many as 20 different models.
The second platform, dubbed MHB, will be featured by the new VW’s rear-engine models, which will be sold over the world as a low cost model. Once again, one does expect to see the platform underpinning a few million vehicles. At the opposite of the range, the luxury models will have their own platform already used by the Audi A4 and A5. Dubbed MLB, it features a longitudinally mounted engine for front-drive and all-wheel-drive transmissions. The next A6 and A8 models will use the MLB platform. The future Phaeton and Bentley models will likely use the same underpinnings.
Finally, a fourth platform will be devoted to sports cars and will be used by the future Lamborghini models and the Audi R8.
With this new platform range, Volkswagen plans to increase sales from 5.7 million vehicles in 2006 to 10 million cars in 2018.
November 27, 2007
2009 Seat saloon

Seat CEO Eric Schmitt announced in May that the Spanish carmaker will launch two news cars in 2009, both set to compete on the mid-sized saloon market segment. At the same time, one sketch of each of the future cars was released. Yesterday, a further rendition of the future sedan was released on the internet.
Obviously, this interpretation tries to stick to the original sketches as much as possible. It gives us an idea of the new direction being taken by Seat. The Spanish carmaker has decided to adopt a conservative design following the failure of the Toledo. Expect to see an elegant saloon more like the Ford Mondeo than the stylish Alfa Romeo 159. Seat is becoming more German every day.
The car will be powered by a range of engines taken from the Volkswagen group. The petrol engines will be the FSI units and the diesel engines will be the famous TDI units. Expect to see a sporty version that may reuse the Leon Cupra’s 2.0L TFSI engine, which produces 240bhp.
Click here to see all the pictures
July 24, 2007
New Seat León is a lot more than a flattened Altea
At the last Geneva Motorshow, Seat had shown a prototype of the new León, now here it is in flesh, sporty, dynamic and almost identical. It strongly recalls the Altea, but offers a more slender silhouette. With its hidden rear door handles, the new León looks like a 5-door coupe, in the manner of the… Alfa 147! Actually, it’s not by chance, for both were drawn by Walter De Silva.
Technically speaking, the new León is very similar to the Golf V, just like the previous León was based on the Golf IV. We find the same engines and floorpan, but the Seat has a different suspension tune up, for it’s supposed to be sportier. More charismatic than its predecessor, the new León is bigger too, now 4315mm long and 1768mm wide. As a consequence, accommodation has been improved.
The client can choose between 3 petrol engines (102bhp 1.6, 150bhp 2.0 FSI and 185bhp T-FSI) and 2 diesel engines (105bhp 1.9 TDI and 140bhp 2.0 TDI). Top units are coupled with a 6-speed gearbox, while the DSG is available on the 2.0 TDI only. The 2.0 T-FSI can reach 137mph and sprint from a standstill to 62mph in 7.8 seconds. Too bad this unit does not deliver 200bhp like on the Golf GTI. We can expect more powerful engines to be released. There’s a choice of 4 trims, Reference, Sport, Stylance and Sport-up. ABS, air-conditioning, 6 airbags and CD player are standard on all models, while the dual-zone climate control or ESP require no extra pound from the Stylance trim only.
Prices will be inferior to those of the Golf: a stylish competitor for the Vauxhall Astra, Renault Mégane, Ford Focus, Peugeot 307 or Citroën C4.

June 29, 2005