SEAT’s now standalone CUPRA performance brand is making its debut appearance at the Geneva Motor Show, and it’s making history in the process. The world’s first fully electric racing touring car in the world is wearing a CUPRA badge, and it’s called the CUPRA e-Racer. Largely based on the SEAT Leon TCR touring car, the CUPRA e-Racer not only looks like a serious race car, it also has as much as 670 horsepower at its disposal.

2018 CUPRA e-Racer

Specifications
  • Make: Array
  • Model: 2018 CUPRA e-Racer
  • [do not use] Vehicle Model: Array
Pros
Cons

CUPRA e-Racer Exterior

The CUPRA e-Racer looks like it’s ready to do some serious racing. While it retains some of the Leon TCR’s aesthetic language, the e-Racer is its own race car. It has a longer hood that slides down to the nose. The dynamic headlamp architecture is there, though it’s plainly obvious that the front section’s most significant features are the bumper, fenders, intakes, and splitter, all of which appear to have been injected with the good stuff. The car sits so close to the ground it’s easy to wonder how much clearance it really has. All the components that were included in the creation of this race car serve one purpose: performance. The arches are wide and massive, the carbon fiber elements are all present, and that massive rear wing puts everything together.

There’s no question that the ground-hugging CUPRA e-Racer is all about. You only need to look at it to know that it’s a menacing full-fledged racer.

CUPRA e-Racer Interior

There are no shots of the interior, but we can imagine that, given its purpose, the CUPRA e-Racer has a race-spec cabin as well. That means that most of the creature comforts from the production model have been taken out in order to make the car lighter. Race seats, a sports steering wheel, and a roll bar at the back are also a given. In fact, you can see the roll bars already from the press photos we already have.

Beyond these usual inclusions, the interior of the CUPRA e-Racer remains a little bit of a mystery.

CUPRA e-Racer Performance

What’s not a mystery is the race car’s power and performance capabilities. The CUPRA e-Racer is born to race. That explains why it has four electric motors that can combine to produce a continuous output of 402 horsepower and a peak output approaching 670 horsepower. As incredible as that is, the CUPRA e-Racer can get to that power number with a single gear with Torque vectoring and rear-wheel traction. The rear-wheel-drive setup of the car is one of the few differences it has compared to the standard Leon TCR, which has a front-wheel-drive setup. It’s also 660 pounds heavier, but it does make up for it with a 65-kWh battery pack that can recover energy under braking. All told, the CUPRA e-Racer is capable of covering 0 to 60 mph in 3.2 seconds and 0 to 124 mph in 8.2 seconds. Its top speed sits at 168 mph.

Conclusion

I wish CUPRA has more details about the e-Racer, but based on what it's already revealed, the all-electric race car has the promise to turn some heads. All it needs to do from here is to show that it has the performance capabilities to back up its surprisingly good looks.

References

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