Barcelona (EFE) risks such as the supply of some components.
In an interview with EFE at the Automobile Barcelona, Griffiths expressed his optimism about the departure of the company, a subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group, due to the high demand for its vehicles, both Cupra and the Seat brand, and the start of the recovery to 2019 levels of production at the Martorell (Barcelona) plant, the largest car factory in Spain.
“This makes us optimistic for the rest of the year. The objective is to do so (exceed the income of 2019, which was 11,157 million). It is our ambition”, he said, after pointing out that the company closed the first quarter of the year with a record operating profit of 144 million euros, which represents an improvement of 139 million compared to a year earlier, and a turnover of up to 3,600 million, 48% more.
These historical figures have been possible, he has emphasized, due to the impulse of Cupra -with a higher margin than Seat-, which has sold more than 300,000 cars since its launch in 2018, and which in this first quarter sold 46,600 units, 83% more than in the same period of 2022.
The focus on profitability
Griffiths has ensured that the company and the Volkswagen Group have billing and profitability as their “number one priority”, and not so much achieving a certain sales volume.
“We are making historical investments in the automobile industry in Spain. 10,000 million for the electrification of the Martorell and Navarra plants and for the Sagunto battery gigafactory. To finance these investments you have to be profitable ”, he said.
Along these lines, he has admitted that “the key” is Cupra: “If the Cupra mix continues to grow, that will help us with profitability.”
The future of the Seat brand
Regarding the role of the Seat brand in the company’s roadmap, the manager has assured that “Cupra does not grow at Seat’s expense” and that Cupra has been prioritized for semiconductors, “but now that supply is improving, Seat It is already growing at a good pace and celebrates 73 years”.
“Seat is for Spain what Volkswagen is for Germany. It is the history of this country ”, he pointed out, to later emphasize that “Seat has a past, present and future ”.
Griffiths believes that the Seat brand “has a lot of potential and appeal to young people.” “And their mobility is changing. Young people no longer want to buy a car. They go on scooters and motorcycles. And they want to share cars. And Seat is the ideal brand to respond to that ”, he affirms.
As an example of this, he pointed out that Seat Mó, Seat’s mobility subsidiary, has already sold more than 10,000 electric motorcycles. “And now we are working on a very specific ‘microcar’ project for cities under the Seat Mó brand”, he said.
Griffiths hopes to announce the details of the project “soon”, in which Seat will collaborate with a partner in the automotive sector that he has not wanted to reveal, although everything indicates that it is Silence, an Acciona subsidiary.
“Companies that remain in the past will disappear and only those that are transformed will continue, assuming the new challenges, with zero emissions and facing the competition that comes from China and the United States,” he stated.
The second platform, waiting
Asked about the possibility that Martorell could have a second platform to assemble a larger electric than the small one that will begin to be manufactured from 2025, Griffiths has admitted that everything will depend on the success of the launch of the small model (a branded one Volkswagen and another from Cupra -the Cupra Raval-).
“They tell me (from the Volkswagen Group) that I have to be successful with the first platform to have the second. We must show that we know how to make it a success before asking for another one for Spain ”, he said, and he admitted that it would be necessary from 2030.
And for it to be successful, “it is necessary to sell electric cars in Spain”, stressed the also president of the Spanish association of car manufacturers, Anfac.
Lights but also shadows
Despite the good omens for Seat, the manager has warned that the outlook is still “volatile” as various risks persist.
“Every time you think you’re back to normal something happens. We have lived through Covid 19, the semiconductor crisis, the energy crisis and the rise in prices. This continues to worry me. We will have to get used to these uncertainties. You have to be flexible and react quickly but see the opportunities and not just the difficulties”, she asserted.
Another of the risks that appears is the lack of water due to the drought. “It’s not worrying yet, but we have to see how the drought continues,” he said, to then point out that Seat is developing initiatives to save water and recycle it.
The supply of semiconductors, which has kept the entire global automotive industry in suspense, is still not fully guaranteed, Griffiths has insisted, assuring that “it will not be resolved until we have a factory in Europe.”