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VW’s SEAT unveils sleek new all-electric hatchback with 260 miles of range

SEAT, a Spanish automaker owned by Volkswagen, has unveiled a new concept behind one of the first Volkswagen all-electric vehicles based on the new MEB platform.

The sleek el-Born all-electric hatchback has 260 miles of range and it is going into production next year.

el-Born is named after a neighborhood of Barcelona, where it was designed.

While the vehicle is a concept, they plan to bring a production version to market as soon as next year and it is already close to a final product.

It features some very sleek and aerodynamic lines.

Alejandro Mesonero-Romanos, Director of Design at SEAT, commented on the concept:

“el-Born is the ultimate translation of our emotional SEAT design language into the new world of electrical vehicles. Our Design Team has taken very seriously the challenge of making our first full electric vehicle attractive. I believe that driving electric cars has to be thrilling, has to be fun. We have to make customers fall in love with the idea of the electric car”,

Here are a few images released by SEAT today:

As for the powertrain, it is equipped with a 62 kWh battery pack, which SEAT says will enable a range of up to 420km (260 miles) on the WLTP official test cycle.

It can achieve a DC fast-charging rate of “up to 100kW DC” and the company says that it translates to “0 to 80% in as little as 47 minutes.”

The electric motor is rated 150kW (204PS) and it can unleash enough power to make the vehicle accelerate to 100km/h (62 mph) in “as little as 7.5 seconds.”

SEAT says that the el-Born is also going to be equipped with a level 2 autonomous driver assist system.

The vehicle is going to be manufactured as VW’s Zwickau plant in Germany, where VW also plans to start the production of its own all-electric hatchback based on the MEB platform.

The el-Born should become the second MEB-based all-electric vehicle from the Volkswagen group once it goes into production next year and be available in European markets.

Electrek’s Take

I love it. Great-looking sleek little hatch with more than decent specs.

The battery pack capacity is good for its size. The actual real-world range should easily be over 200 miles of range and it could launch at a somewhat reasonable price.

I think it could use a slightly more powerful motor or a dual motor option maybe to keep the price low for the base version.

At the moment, I like it more than what we have seen of VW’s own MEB hatchback, but we haven’t really seen a close-to-production uncamouflaged version of that car yet.

What do you think? Let us know in the comment section below.

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