Spanish performance upstart Cupra is celebrating two years in the Australian market this month, coinciding with the delivery of its 1000th plug-in hybrid (PHEV) Down Under.
The Volkswagen Group subsidiary has been one of the front-runners in the PHEV space, beating out its fellow Group brands to bring plug-ins to the Australian market and punching above its weight in the PHEV sales charts.
Cupra Australia director Ben Wilks says that PHEVs account for one third of the brand’s local sales so far in 2024, which is a 300 per cent increase on last year.
Further, for the first half of 2024 the Cupra Formentor VZe PHEV returned 313 registrations – equivalent to 51.7 per cent of total Formentor deliveries and placing sixth overall in PHEV sales standings according to VFACTS data.
Leon VZe
The smaller Leon VZe PHEV hatchback lodged 53 registrations to the end of June, accounting for 32.3 per cent of overall Leon sales.
For context, Cupra sold 545 PHEVs in total during the entire 2023 calendar year.
Mr Wilks said that while Cupra’s PHEV models didn’t come into full supply until well into 2023, the brand has seen an “exceptional spike in interest” in its plug-in hybrid products.
“The convenience of dual forms of drive capability aside, plug-in hybrids benefit from significant government incentives. This means that a fully equipped Formentor VZe Tribe Edition can cost less on novated lease than the entry Formentor V,” Mr Wilks added.
Cupra Australia recently announced a run of 300 Formentor VZe Tribe Editions, a highly specified PHEV with exclusive equipment items compared to the standard VZe. It’s priced from $67,990 before on-road costs.
Formentor VZe Tribe Edition
Existing versions of the Cupra Leon and Formentor VZe – known elsewhere as the e-Hybrid – use the VW Group’s 1.4 TSI plug-in hybrid system which pairs a 110kW/250Nm turbo petrol engine with an 88kW/330Nm electric motor.
System outputs are 180kW and 400Nm, with drive sent exclusively to the front wheels via a six-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission.
The 10.9kWh (usable) lithium-ion battery pack offers a claimed 58 kilometres of EV driving range per charge, with fuel and energy efficiency officially quoted at 1.9L/100km and 14.1kWh/100km respectively.
Pricing starts from $61,690 before on-road costs for the Leon VZe, and $64,990 before on-roads for the Formentor VZe.
Sales of PHEVs in Australia are steadily climbing, though despite a couple of monthly declines in EV sales this year PHEVs still trail their fully electric counterparts by a considerable margin.
A total of 8223 plug-in hybrids have been registered Down Under to June 30, 2024. That’s 129.6 per cent up on the same period in 2023, and June’s monthly figure of 1949 units was 149.2 per cent higher than the same month last year.
In contrast, 50,219 EVs were registered in the first half of this year, up just 16.5 per cent on the same period last year.
Leading the PHEV charge (pardon the pun) are the plug-in versions of the Mitsubishi Outlander and Eclipse Cross, which have notched 2422 and 1409 deliveries respectively.
The Mazda CX-60 has lodged 698 PHEV sales, followed by 482 by the new BYD Sealion 6. Just ahead of the Cupra Formentor is the Volvo XC60 Recharge PHEV (390 units).
Unlike ‘self-charging’ or ‘closed-circuit’ conventional hybrids – think the Toyota RAV4 Hybrid, for example – plug-in hybrids are subject to the same Fringe Benefits Tax (FBT) exemptions as electric vehicles (EVs), at least until April 2025.
These incentives apply to PHEVs and EVs that come in under the Luxury Car Tax (LCT) threshold, which is currently sitting at $91,387 for ‘fuel efficient vehicles’ for the 2024-25 financial year. A fuel efficient vehicle is defined by the ATO as a car that doesn’t use more than 7.0 litres per 100km on the combined test cycle.
Treasury figures claim an employer could save up to $9000 in calculated FBT payments on a hypothetical $50,000 EV or PHEV provided to an employee.
For the same vehicle, individuals sponsored by their employer for a novated lease (payments made by the employer on the employee’s behalf, pre-tax) can save up to $4700 a year. Read more on the scheme here.
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