Cupra plans luxury electric SUV to tackle Tesla, BMW and Benz, and it’s coming to Australia

Volkswagen Group performance brand Cupra has confirmed it is hatching a new large battery-powered SUV that will help it conquer new territories and see it battle more established premium rivals like BMW and Mercedes for the first time.

Confirmed by Cupra boss Wayne Griffiths, the incoming large SUV is coming to Australia, although it is primarily being targeted at the US tastes and will spearhead the brand’s North American breakthrough.

Claimed to be a sport road-biased performance SUV, rather than a more rugged off-roader, Griffiths ruled out offering a third row of seats.

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“I don’t think it’s going to have seven seats but it’s going to be big, and it is big,” said the Cupra CEO.

“We have the design models already ready – it’s a very impressive car in terms of design.

“Not a classic SUV – a crossover, sportier in line with what Cupra’s all about.

“It’s pretty big for Europe and I think it’s big enough for the US.”

Griffiths didn’t confirm what would underpin the brand’s new flagship SUV but it’s thought it could be based on either an updated version of the current Born hatch’s MEB architecture or the VW Group’s next-gen Scalable Systems Platform (SSP).

It’s been tipped that to save costs the new unnamed Cupra SUV might be developed alongside the incoming flagship Skoda SUV that has already been previewed by the 2022 Skoda Vision 7S concept.

Even though not related, it’s thought that both the incoming Cupra Terramar and Tavascan SUVs will provide styling clues on how the flagship model will look like.

When it arrives the new Cupra will also have a range of more than 600km and should feature the VW Group’s latest EV tech that could see fast DC charging at more than 270kW –well beyond the 170kW rate of the latest Cupra Born VS.

Griffiths, meanwhile, didn’t disclose timings for the US launch but it’s thought the flagship sporty SUV will arrive towards the end of this decade along with the next-generation all-electric Formentor.

Cupra currently sell one electric-only model in Australia, the Born hatchback.