SEAT Altea DROPPED in favour of new range of SEAT SUVs

SEAT is pinning its future on a range of SUVs to tap in to the still growing SUV/Crossover market, and are dropping the Altea as the SUVs roll out.

SEAT is VW’s problem child; just about every bit of the VW Group makes a healthy profit, but VW has yet to find a way to turn SEAT in to a cash cow.

But that could be about to change as SEAT plans to roll out a range of SUVs to tap in to market demand for SUVs and Crossovers of all shapes and sizes, from sub-compact models to full size.

To make space in their offerings for the SUVs, SEAT is planning to drop the Altea MPV in as the first of SEAT’s SUVs – a compact model – arrives to tempt buyers, with a SEAT spokeswoman telling Automotive News: “Starting from 2016, we will offer a compact SUV as an attractive alternative (to the Altea)”.

But even though the ‘alternative’ to the Altea is a year away, SEAT has already quietly dropped the Altea and Altea XL from its offerings on their UK website.

But the 2016 compact SUV from SEAT – using VW’s MQB Platform and built in the Czech Republic alongside a Skoda sibling – will be just the start, with Skoda planning a sub-compact SUV in 2017 and a bigger SUV – previewed by the SEAT 20V20 Concept we saw at Geneva this year – arriving by 2020.

Which, as long as the rise and rise of the SUV/Crossover market continues, should be a clever move. Analysts predict the market – which has grown three-fold in the last decade from 500,000 to 1.5 million – will hit 2 million by 2020.

And margins on SUVs are much better too, which should help SEAT’s bottom line.