Whilst Cupra’s are essentially Seat’s, and Seat is already on the scheme, they are marketing Cupra as a separate brand
This is wrong. At least today. A few years back it was correct. Cupra is not a subdivision of SEAT anymore, it’s an independent brand. It’s not just marketed as a separate brand, it is one. That’s why they have cars like the Born, which as you will notice, isn’t a SEAT, but a VW. AMG doesn’t “tune” SMART cars, nor does BMWs M division “tune” Minis. Tuning divisions are “in brand”, not “in organisation”. Another pointer would be the Formentor, which is a pure Cupra car with no equivalent by SEAT or VAG in general. The rest is correct though. Although i don’t think the ID3 looks boring, especially not compared to the Kona, Leaf and other smaller EVs, that’s subjective. I certainly disagree that all EVs look boring though, there’s plenty of exciting looking ones – it’s just that those usually are way out of our price range. Taycan, Q4 e-Tron, e-Tron GT, Polestar 2, some of the Mercedes’ EQ range etc. Enyaq IV is a cracking looking car, imho, too (with the correct wheels/paint).
OK, but I thought that Seat and Cupra were both part of VAG group and Cupras have more than a passing resemblance to Seats! I should clarify my point about bland or ugly EV’s. I was referring to those on the Motability scheme, although I accept that looks are entirely subjective. If they weren’t we’d all want the same car!
Well yes, Cupra is part of the VAG group – but so is Audi. You wouldn’t argue that Audi is part of SEAT. Of course there’s a resemblance, as i said, until a few years ago (rather recently, actually), they were indeed basically the AMG of SEAT, “tuning” SEAT cars. I have a somewhat hard time to find an equivalent admittedly, there’s for example Brabus for Mercedes (not quite the same, but similar in the sense that they “tune” Mercedes’ which aren’t Mercedes’ anymore afterwards), or RUF for Porsche. The RUF Yellow Bird wasn’t a Porsche, even though it clearly was a 911. If that makes sense.
Nowadays, Cupra doesn’t just “tune” SEATs, they make their own cars (Formentor) and tune in-organisation (ID3).
And yeah, i agree. The to us available EVs are somewhat bland compared to what’s available on the market. I still don’t think the ID3 looks boring (again, subjective), but it doesn’t look exciting either. There really aren’t many exciting cars on the scheme, i suppose by choice – as i said, offering an MX5 to disabled people might make sense to you and me (albeit, it doesn’t actually make sense to me either), but try selling that to the yellow press. I’d have loved a GT86. One of the main reasons for the GTE over the normal golf are indeed the sport seats, because they support her (edit: my wifes) hip in the correct places to stay comfortable. Something our “comfort seats” in the Ateca don’t, she can only sit in there for an hour before it gets painful (that’s the reason why we got to terminate early).
So.. I can see both sides. The fact remains though, that the majority of people on the scheme don’t actually need a sporty car. In this case, the only thing the Born would offer to the scheme is (potentially) less comfort, more power (pointless in an already rapidly accelerating car, so not an argument when trying to sell to disabled people), and better looks. And i absolutely agree that it just looks better that way. The question remains, is “getting a better looking ID3” worth the inevitable backlash of the public, and in that regard i’d argue, no. It’s not worth it. If the Born ticks all important boxes, the ID3 does too. “Exciting to look at” isn’t really a necessity if the goal is to give disabled people an option to be less reliant on others, making them more mobile etc.
Prior: SEAT Ateca Xcellence Lux 1.5 TSI DSG MY19, VW Golf GTE PHEV DSG MY23
Current: Hyundai Ioniq 6 Ultimate
Next: we'll see what's available in 2028.