GENEVA MOTOR SHOW: Seat el-Born concept debuts

So who wants a Tesla Model 3 that’s built properly at a genuine budget price?

The Volkswagen Group’s Spanish offshoot plans to blow budget electric-car rivals out of the game with its el-Born concept car.

Seat’s 150kW electric hatch promises a 420km range from its lithium-ion battery pack in what promises to be the cheapest production model off the Volkswagen Group’s MEB electric-car architecture.

What’s more, Seat el-Born is promising a “sporty driving experience” from its single-motor EV, which will go on sale in Europe next year.

It will be the second production MEB car, after Volkswagen’s I.D. hatch, and it will share much of its mechanical and powertrain engineering with the first mainstream Volkswagen EV.

Like the I.D., the el-Born (which is named after a Barcelona suburb) will offer a range of, err, ranges and power outputs in production.

Its concept version is based on the same 62kWh battery pack that sits beneath the Volkswagen I.D. Buggy, making it capable of hitting 100km/h in 7.5 seconds.

It’s pre-engineered to hook up to Volkswagen’s new mobile 100kW DC superchargers, which can recharge it to 80 per cent in 47 minutes, as well as static charging units.

“It’s the ultimate translation of our emotional design language into the new world of electric vehicles,” Seat design boss Alejandro Mesonero-Romanos said.

“We have to make customers fall in love with the idea.”

It might wear a Spanish badge, but the production versions of the el-Born will run down the same production lines as the I.D. hatch in Zwickau, Germany.

Alas, the Volkswagen Group has no plans to reintroduce the Seat brand Down Under, but Australians should eventually gain access to the Seal el-Born’s advanced powertrain in other VW Group models.