Seat puts a Porsche executive at the head of the Martorell plant

Seat continues to reorganize its management chart after Luca de Meo's departure to Renault. After the appointment of Wayne Griffiths as the new executive president of the Barcelona-based automotive brand, a change at the helm of the Martorell factory has now been announced, which will be led from January by an executive from Porsche.

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This is Christian Friedl, one of the most reputable executives in the Volkswagen group's production area, who arrives in Barcelona after having been appointed in 2016, when he was less than 40 years old, director of Porsche's main plant, located in Zuffenhausen, in the northern part of the city of Stuttgart. The last project led by Friedl at Porsche was the expansion of this factory to accommodate the production of the new Porsche Taycan, the luxury brand's first 100% electric vehicle.

This experience is what Seat wants to leverage, as Friedl's great mission will be to electrify the Martorell plant, that is, to convert it into an electric car factory. The company announced a few months ago an investment of 5 billion euros until 2025 to electrify its range and adapt the Martorell facilities.

Friedl will report to Seat's Vice President of Production and Logistics, Herbert Steiner, and will replace Rainer Fessel. After his time at Seat, this executive has been promoted by the group, which has entrusted him with the management of Volkswagen's largest factory, located in the company's hometown, Wolfsburg. Fessel has managed the Martorell plant for the last two and a half years, a period in which the factory has achieved record production volumes and launched four new models on the market.

Seat's Catalan factory consists of three production lines that manufacture six models: Seat Ibiza, León, Arona, Cupra León, Audi A1, and Cupra Formentor. The plant already has a program underway to train the entire workforce to adapt to the arrival of electric cars, and a few weeks ago it began production of plug-in hybrid models for León and Cupra. Currently, Martorell manufactures 2,200 cars a day, with more than 9,000 employees.

Seat's goal is to end the year with 350,000 vehicles manufactured at the Barcelona plant, which will represent a 30% drop compared to 2019 and 150,000 fewer cars than initially planned at the beginning of the year, before the pandemic broke out. The challenge is to recover this figure in 2021, reaching 480,000 manufactured vehicles.

Seat has also recently completed a 30 million euro investment in Martorell to put into operation the most advanced engine testing center in Southern Europe. These facilities employ 200 people and will carry out mechanical tests for a large part of the new engines of the different brands of the Volkswagen group.