Audi Q3 crossover to be built by SEAT for 2011

Having exceeded the one million vehicles sold globally (1,003,469) in one year (2008), for the first time in its history, Audi presented another step of its expansion plans with the recent announcement that its new Q3 compact crossover SUV will be built at the SEAT (Audi and SEAT are part of the VW Group) plant in Martorell, Spain, from 2011.

The Audi Q3 was first shown as the Cross Coupe quattro concept car at the Shanghai Motor Show in 2007 (more about the Audi Cross Coupe quattro).

Complementing Audi's Q family of crossover SUVs, below the five-seat Q5 (produced in Ingolstadt, Germany) and the seven-seat Q7 (produced in Bratislava, Slovakia), the new compact Q3 (an upscale brother of the Volkswagen Tiguan) project represents an investment of around €300 million, with a production capacity of up to 80,000 units yearly.

Audi's global expansion plan represents an annual investment of two billion Euros to broaden the four-ring brand's offer to 40 models by 2015, including the launch of the small A1 car (to be built in Belgium) in mid 2010, with an annual sales target of more than 100,000 units.

In light of the current global economic climate, and with the plan to build the Q3 in Spain, the earlier decision to produce the Q3 in the USA has been postponed, said Rupert Stadler, Chairman of the Board of Management at AUDI AG.

For SEAT and Spain, Audi's decision comes at the right time, after the Spanish brand's global sales dropped by 14.6 percent last year, to 368,100 units, especially that the SEAT Tribu concept car (presented in Frankfurt two years ago) is based on the same VW Tiguan / Q3 platform, and can be built then at a lower cost in the same plant, raising Martorell's production to between 450,000 and 480,000 units.

Bearing in mind that the current global crisis is expected to end within a year or two, the launch of the compact Audi and SEAT crossovers should normally coincide with the return of the growth trends.