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People have been speculating about SEAT's possible demise for a while now.
It's interesting to see that my local dealer is now offering a range of discounts, most notably £2,500 cash discount on an Ateca. Conversely, it's only a £500 deposit contribution on a Leon.
Not sure if it's a closing down sale or just end of the line for the Ateca.
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There was some speculation on here a while back about VAG cutting Seat out as the division is loss making.
They have Audi, VW, Skoda
With rising costs does it make economic sense to keep Seat.
Or are they partly retreating to guarantee jobs in Germany?
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I know not all folks want a performance car but when Cupra became a stand alone brand then the Seat range becomes quite bland.
Always like my Leon FRs though. Good fun and not expensive to own.
Fiat did the Same with Abarth, now no sporty models in the Fiat line up.
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I know not all folks want a performance car but when Cupra became a stand alone brand then the Seat range becomes quite bland. Always like my Leon FRs though. Good fun and not expensive to own. Fiat did the Same with Abarth, now no sporty models in the Fiat line up.
A similar thing happened when Citroen was split into two with DS being the 'luxury / sport' brand, and look how badly they've done in comparison to when the latter was just a 'version' of a Citroen car.
A bad move for both makes, as they seemed to be picking up sales 10-20 years ago, at least in the UK. Now you see very few post 'separation', which is a shame, as I liked many of their cars prior to that split, the DS3 (not the jacked up crossover) and previous Leon (especially the 3 door SC [sadly no version on the current car, not so good looking either] in 1.4TSI 140/150 SE or FR trim).
With so many makes other than Toyota not having much success, if any, with such moves, you'd have thought that VAG would've thought better of it and left SEAT to be the 'affordable sporty' set of cars they already were, with Skoda as the 'sensible value', Audi as the 'premium sport' and VW as the bit of everything.
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They have Audi, VW, Skoda With rising costs does it make economic sense to keep Seat.
Having never owned a VAG car I know nothing of its pricing hierarchy (I should ask my SiL, he works for VW) but I thought Seat sat near the bottom of the VAG range pricewise, a bit like Citroën in PSA. So presumably it contributes less to VAG and may be expendable ? Does it have EV or hybrid models ?
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They have Audi, VW, Skoda With rising costs does it make economic sense to keep Seat.
Having never owned a VAG car I know nothing of its pricing hierarchy (I should ask my SiL, he works for VW) but I thought Seat sat near the bottom of the VAG range pricewise, a bit like Citroën in PSA. So presumably it contributes less to VAG and may be expendable ? Does it have EV or hybrid models ?
As far as I know, there is a PHEV Leon and that's about it. There was an electric Mini, but I think that's gone. The EVs and hybrids sit under the Cupra brand.
Seat was pitched as the 'young, sporty' brand at the bottom of the VAG ladder alongside the 'dull and reliable' Skoda. Having now passed that on to Cupra, and Skoda having improved their image a bit, Seat doesn't really have a niche. I suppose it might morph into VAG's Dacia.
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With the fall in the number of car manufacturers over the last few years (takeovers) and EV branding of newer models, VW will have had a brand review to carry them forward.
There is a clear hierarchy with:
- Audi at the top who get latest tech, gizmos, performance and finish
- VW with the mid-range quality brand
- Skoda and Seat at the bottom founded on value for money
- Cupra - filling the sporty younger slot?
The tech etc seems to flow downwards over time to keep all brands fresh.
Seat are the only ones with no BEV in the range now - this could be a signal that there is a more positive recognition of Skoda vs Seat as a brand - longer term VW group will slim down to a single "base" brand.
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VAG have made a mess of their brands and pricing structures
Skoda has gone from being good value to a mid tier competing with VW and Seat; infact some Skoda models are very expensive compared to other manufacturers and its difficult to see why?
Skoda are not sporty (VRS accepted), not cheap, no special selling point such as a long warranty, midtable in terms of reliability
Seat are the exact same, selling rebadged VWs a grand or 2 less is not a recipe for success.
A few years ago VW did talk about bringing a Dacia equivalent to Europe but that was pre Covid.
PSA are making the same mistake with Peugeot, Fiat, Citroen and Vauxhall/Opel.
They have tried to push up the Peugeot list price above the rest but the rest are just rebadged Peugeots.
Likewise rather than keeping vauxhall, Citroen and Fiat towards the value end of the market they have stopped the chase for volume and all 3 of those brands are in the crowded mid market with few unique selling points.
Fiat has the 500 and thats really it, the rest of the line up blends in and is not competitive on price.
Citroen is quirky but not cheap anymore and often priced to the same level as Peugeot.
Vauxhall is not longer cheap, none of the model line up has any unique selling points.
Add to that the entire PSA passenger range have the same identical 3 year warranty, as they are mainly rebadged copies all are mid table or lower in terms of reliability.
There are reasons why 2 big european car manufacturers with multiple brands have gone the same way, not wanting to internally compete is the main one.
They dont want Skoda selling a rebadged VW for far less so they would rather bring Skoda up than lower VW profit targets. In terms of manufacturing its probably easier to bring Skoda up.
However they do lose sales at the bottom of the market to the likes of MG and Dacia.
They will be losing far more in the coming years to the Chinese.
Kia and Hyundai arguably going the same way.
Renault & Nissan seem to get it correct on the whole in Europe keeping Dacia models completely separate.
Edited by daveyK_UK on 17/08/2023 at 08:25
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<< Likewise rather than keeping Vauxhall, Citroen and Fiat towards the value end of the market they have stopped the chase for volume and all 3 of those brands are in the crowded mid market with few unique selling points. >>
My opinions on the value of new models all come from hearsay, mostly on here, but IMHO very few cars have anything that could be accurately described as a USP - only basic things like good old-fashioned value for money ?
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<< Likewise rather than keeping Vauxhall, Citroen and Fiat towards the value end of the market they have stopped the chase for volume and all 3 of those brands are in the crowded mid market with few unique selling points. >>
My opinions on the value of new models all come from hearsay, mostly on here, but IMHO very few cars have anything that could be accurately described as a USP - only basic things like good old-fashioned value for money ?
I'd say that a lot fewer cars are genuinely stylish these days, and especially the latest lot (particualrly EVs). Any make that can present this and at minimum reasonable competeence in all other regards should be onto a winner.
Often it is the reliability and post-sales experience that lets them down, plus of course, the high prices, which have reduced new car sales significantly once other factors are taken into account.
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VAG really don’t known what to do with Seat. They’ve ended up in a very British Leyland position of running several car firms that are competing directly with each other and flogging products based on the same underpinnings. Seat and Skoda in particular are too close in pricing and marketplace.
They should’ve kept Skoda as a genuine budget brand and lifted Seat to where Skoda is now. They need a genuine Dacia rival, as the original plan for Skoda suggested. It was meant to be a substantially cheaper lower spec product based on previous gen VW’s but is instead priced out of contention for many ordinary working people. Instead Seat, Skoda and VW are competing with each other too much which is killing Seat.
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I think that part of the problem is that they have all gone 'upmarket', as most car manufacturers have done over the last 10 years, and frankly there's only so much of a client base to support the high prices (even taking into account pandemic factors) they are now charging.
This is also exaccerbated by the mandated significant uplifts in 'safety' and 'emissions' tech that are by their nature subject to the law of dimishing returns vs the cost that must be born by the consumer.
Dacia has shown the way until recently, but even they are now going upmarket and dropping many base spec models.
What the Western manufacturers fail to see is that all of this is actively encouraging the cheaper Chinese 'knock-off' brands to enter the market and increasingly taking the lower and even middle ground, likely resulting in huge job losses in Western production plants via lower sales or at the very least, transfers of facilities to countries with a lower labour cost base and local taxes.
I agree and find it ridiculous that many sub-brands of the 'big' car manufacturers are mainly just competing with one another for a good portion of their output.
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I agree and find it ridiculous that many sub-brands of the 'big' car manufacturers are mainly just competing with one another for a good portion of their output.
That's not always a bad thing though - if someone is picking between a Seat and a Skoda - ultimately VW still gets that money.
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I agree and find it ridiculous that many sub-brands of the 'big' car manufacturers are mainly just competing with one another for a good portion of their output.
That's not always a bad thing though - if someone is picking between a Seat and a Skoda - ultimately VW still gets that money.
The problem for them is that all that extra designing and marking to reasonably differentiate, plus the extra manufacturing costs will mean they either lose profits overall or customers will be forced to pay over the odds to ensure profitability is the same per vehicle sold, although that may come at the overall figure for the group.
In my view, there are way too many manufacturers and especially new cars/variants on sale today for the market to sell to compared to a few decades ago. I mean look how many variants VAG offer compared to 20 or 30 years ago.
Many models are now short-lived and thus £Bns must have been wasted on R&D and manufacturing / marketing costs, which inevitably get passed on or born by shareholders in poor returns.
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European manufacturers can make little profit in basic low priced cars.
To win customers, manufacturers need to do the almost mutually exclusive - (a) reduce costs to keep prices down, but (b) improve the product to make it more attractive than the competition.
The western European cost base is high compared to China, India and some of the former eastern bloc. Producing cheap cars needs low production costs. The major high cost brands will continue to produce high spec and high cost cars.
If they attempt basic and cheap they will rapidly fail - their cost base is too high, they know how to produce quality not cheap.
Like it or not, the Chinese are capable of producing decent quality cars at a low price due to the currently low cost base. Quite simply they will thrive.
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European manufacturers can make little profit in basic low priced cars.
To win customers, manufacturers need to do the almost mutually exclusive - (a) reduce costs to keep prices down, but (b) improve the product to make it more attractive than the competition.
The western European cost base is high compared to China, India and some of the former eastern bloc. Producing cheap cars needs low production costs. The major high cost brands will continue to produce high spec and high cost cars.
If they attempt basic and cheap they will rapidly fail - their cost base is too high, they know how to produce quality not cheap.
Like it or not, the Chinese are capable of producing decent quality cars at a low price due to the currently low cost base. Quite simply they will thrive.
They will be able to experiment a bit with their cars designs - inside and out and take a few risks. Could make for some interesting cars.
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Nissan, Hyundai and Kia all have cars north of 50 grand now. Its a personal choice but I would not fork out that sort of money for any of these. This is pretty exclusive territory which is populated by some serious opposition.
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Dacia are genius, having recently had a ride in a 23 plate Sandero Stepway , for £15.3k I dont think there is anything close to it at the price point that offers the price and space, plus you can extend the warranty.
If i was in the market for a new small family car, a Sandero Stepway would be top of the list
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Have Dacia improved their NCAP ratings for crash safety?
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Have Dacia improved their NCAP ratings for crash safety?
They don't have a problem with crash safety. Their NCAP issues are from not sticking stupid stuff like lane keep assist in their cars.
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drivethedeal.com always have what appear to be good deals on brand new SEATs eg. £6.5k off a £29k Ateca 1.5 EVO, or £3.4k off a £21.8k Ibiza FR (although add £750 if there isn't already a SEAT in the household, and £500 if you don't take out SEAT finance).
We've got a 2018 1.5 150ps Arona FR, and we really like it - not too big (Polo floorpan I believe) but easy to get into, reasonably quick, and comfortable despite the FR spec. Only do them with DSG now though - not sure I'd want to risk that,
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