Seat presents their first BEV: Mii electric

Seat has presented its first electric model, the Mii electric, in Oslo. It will replace the conventionally powered Mii, whose production will end in July 2019. Advance sales start in September and the first units are to be delivered before the end of this year.

The Seat Mii electric shares the technology with its recently presented sister model Skoda Citigo e iV, which is also based on an electric motor with 61 kW and a battery with 36.8 kWh capacity, which should enable a WLTP range of up to 260 km in the Mii electric (provisional value). The appearance of the new BEV has hardly changed in comparison to the previous combustion-engine models.

Unlike Skoda, which has founded its own subsidiary brand iV for electric cars, the Mii electric is part of Seat’s core range. “The market is changing, and electrification is expanding at an unprecedented rate. In Europe, the electric vehicle market grew by 46% in the first 4 months of the year, moving forward we expect electrified vehicles to play an important role within our range,” says Luca de Meo, President of Seat.

The small electric car, which replaces the previous combustion version, will also play a key role in preparing the brand’s dealers for the future of electric vehicles. A single speed transmission enables the Mii Electric to sprint from 0 to 50 km/h (31 mph) in 3.9 seconds. Seat says this is important because it allows the car to easily jump in and out of traffic.

Advance sales of the Seat Mii electric will start in September and production is scheduled to start in Bratislava in the fourth quarter of 2019. The market launch will begin at the end of this year. Seat has not yet released pricing details, but claims the small electric car will become “one of the most affordable electric vehicles on the market”. Seat names Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, France, Spain, Austria, Great Britain, Switzerland, Italy, Belgium, Denmark, Finland and Sweden as the core markets for the electric model.

The next electric car from Seat is to follow as early as 2020: The compact car called el-Born is based on the MEB of the parent company Volkswagen and is manufactured together with the VW ID.3 in Zwickau. To this end, four existing models will also be available with a plug-in drive at dealerships by 2021.

Parallel to the electrical plans in Europe, Seat is also working on a comeback in China – as a purely electrical brand. With the Leon FR, VW had already wanted to establish the Spanish brand as an import brand in China in 2012. Two years later, the venture was considered a failure. Now, the Spanish subsidiary has joined the JAC-Volkswagen joint venture there and is set to enter the Chinese market over the next two to three years. A separate platform for smaller electric cars from JAC and Seat is to follow later.

seat-mediacenter.com, carscoops.com, autocar.co.uk, autoexpress.co.uk