Cupra boss remains committed to battery-electric in face of EU e-fuels debate; confirms Formentor and Leon EV on the cards

The head of Cupra's global operations says he is committed to sticking with plans to go fully-electric by 2030 – despite other Volkswagen Group brands seeking to change the EU's 2035 ban on internal-combustion.

Cupra CEO Wayne Griffiths made the statement during a call with Australian media on Thursday night, saying his firm would continue on the path to full electrification by the end of the decade, regardless of what his counterparts were doing.

In recent days the European Commission has drafted concessions to allow the sale of new cars with internal-combustion engines (ICE) after its initial 2035 hard cutoff, but only if they run on climate- and carbon-neutral e-fuels.

The move comes as the EU attempts to save its green plan of phasing out combustion cars after a series of last-minute objections, led by Germany, halted the approval process.

Reuters, which has seen the draft, indicates that the EU is looking to create a new type of vehicle category in Europe specifically for cars that can only run on carbon-neutral synthetic fuels.

5

Porsche and Ferrari are the two biggest players pushing for e-fuels to be exempt, with synthetic combustible advocates arguing that they are effectively renewable electricity converted into a combustible, liquid fuel using atmospheric CO2.

"As Seat and Cupra, and even VW, [planning for e-fuels] is too big for us to manage to do that, so we’re going to put all our resources and all our focus on fully-electric and leave that for the luxury and sports brands where it could be a solution," said Griffiths.

"As a group though, at VW level, yes it could work because 2035 doesn’t have to mean zero-emissions totally, it could be the solution is synthetic fuels or hydrogen – you have to be open to all technology and not say there is only one.

5

"At the moment there is no way to make synthetic fuel in the quantities required, yes in South America they have started levels of production – but they're not ready to replace petrol or diesel. The costs are quite prohibitive, we need to get costs down and production up first."

Griffiths, however, did criticise the EU for its hardline stance on internal-combustion, saying it "creates a problem not only for us but the whole industry".

"I think the ban has accelerated our plans to go to a fully-electric brand by 2030 certainly, and, as we've already confirmed, our last ICE car will be the Terramar," he said.

"We are in discussions with the EU trying to find a pragmatic approach to the legislation – and absolutely promote bringing emissions down, but it needs to be done in a way that doesn’t destroy employment, because if we did it as it is written on paper at the moment we’d be closing factories."

5

Elaborating further on Cupra's EV plans between now and 2030, Griffiths said both its Formentor and Leon models would go fully-electric in time, and would retain their nameplates when doing so – unlike other brands (even within the Group) which opt for entirely new ones.

"Names with numbers and letters – that is quite robotic," he said. "The Formentor, when it goes 100 per cent EV, would be called the Formentor and same with the Leon, the Terramar and the Tavascan.

"The nomenclature that way can be quite open, every car will have an emotional Spanish name."

As for when these models will go electric remains to be seen, with the brand still to decide which platform the models will ride on – the current 400-volt MEB architecture underpinning the upcoming Cupra Born hatch or 800-volt SSP set to launch in 2028.

The Formentor, therefore, could be one of the Group's last vehicles to feature MEB around 2025 or one of the first to debut SSP three years later.

"The jury is still out on that one. There are pros and cons. Obviously MEB is earlier. But SSP has a longer run, is a newer platform and can perhaps be more competitive," said Griffiths.

5

The UrbanRebel meanwhile, revealed in near-production form mid-2022, will use the new MEB Entry/21 platform Cupra is developing for the Volkswagen Group.

However, Griffiths says he has high hopes that one day the UrbanRebel could feature all-wheel drive – with MEB 21 being an exclusively front-drive architecture.

"It’s something I’m pushing for. But it’s very difficult on the MEB platform. It would be great if we had the money to do it, to make it financially viable, but it would have to be something the group wants to do as well – to do it alone would be difficult," he told motoring media.

"One of our biggest objectives is to make EVs accessible at a price level, and to do that we have to make some compromises – you can’t have a platform that can do everything and still have a car cost below €25,000. We just have to see how far we can get with FWD, keep [4WD] something we’re open to over time."