Seat is to invest millions of euros repurposing one of its factories in Spain to produce components for its small battery electric vehicle (BEV) family from 2025.
The Seat Components plant in El Prat de Llobregat will produce five components – differential, pivot bearing, battery E-Box, KMM (a battery cooling module) as well as the aluminium for the motor.
Currently, about 900 people work in production at the site producing two manual gearboxes for combustion engine cars.
Seat says it will gradually reduce production of these gearboxes and take advantage of the highly skilled workforce and productivity at the plant to drive the development and improvement of new processes for EV components.
The site is one of the company’s three production centres – together with Martorell and Barcelona – and one of the Volkswagen Group’s nine dedicated transmission manufacturing facilities worldwide.
Founded in 1979, Seat Components has been recognised on several occasions for its efficiency and the high quality of its production processes.
In 2016, the plant received the Industrial Excellence Award in recognition of its lean management strategy, recognising it as a benchmark in terms of productivity and quality.
Markus Haupt, Vice-President for Production and Logistics at Seat., said, “The award of new components reaffirms the commitment of Seat and the Volkswagen Group to employment stability and the search for alternatives that ensure the future of Seat Components, as part of the transformation process in which all the group’s component plants are immersed.
“The collaboration of the workers and their union representatives is key to the success of this process.”
