CUPRA is committed to sustainability and bold design with the Raval’s CUP Bucket seats, made with 3D knitting technology

• The cover is made in a single piece, generates zero waste and is composed of completely recycled and recyclable material
• Behind this first in the automotive world is a story of sustainability, circular economy and a commitment to innovation

When design, innovation, sustainability and authenticity come together, the result is one-of-a-kind features such as the CUPRA Raval’s CUP Bucket seats. In just a few weeks, they’ll be revealed in the 100% electric model that’s designed, developed and manufactured in Barcelona. But below is a preview of the inner workings of creating, for the first time in the automotive industry, a seat cover made entirely with 3D knitting technology, in a single, seamless piece, zero waste and locally produced.

The Colour&Trim department never loses sight of design, but this time they’ve gone one step further. They had been experimenting with parametric design and additive manufacturing for years. We already caught a glimpse in other CUPRA models, creating surfaces that evolve thanks to parametric design and even knitted parts in the headrests of the CUPRA DarkRebel and CUPRA Tindaya showcars, and in some areas of the Tribe Editions' seats. Now, in the CUPRA Raval, they’ve taken it to the next level. “The cover is made in one piece, with a single knitting machine and in a single run. The result is a piece designed down to the last millimetre to fit the seat like a glove, with a sporty and totally new design” says Francesca Sangalli, the head of Colour&Trim Concept&Strategy at CUPRA. 

Behind this revolutionary concept in the automotive world is a team that has put all its experience into seeing this project become a reality. “It’s an entirely new process in which we’ve had to learn how to implement our design using a totally different manufacturing concept. Collaboration with our supplier, Tesca, has been essential in achieving the result we were looking for” Sangalli adds. Conventional seat cover manufacturing involves several suppliers, from textile manufacturing, dyeing, perforating, cutting and treating to joining all the parts together before fitting them to the seat structure. With this system, everything is reduced to a single supplier, Tesca. 

At their facilities, every cover is knitted in a single piece. “It’s been a mutual learning process with a completely innovative approach in which we’ve interpreted CUPRA’s design to adapt it to our software so that, with thousands of data points, the machines can knit each structure, pattern, seam and even the parts needed to secure the cover to the seat, with different yarns, all at the same time. The result is a single piece that perfectly fits the CUP Bucket seat of the CUPRA Raval” as explained by Tesca representatives.

Achieving zero waste in the manufacture of each cover is crucial, because the entire process is grounded in a commitment to sustainability. The yarn comes from recycled plastics collected in the Mediterranean Sea and is made in local companies near Tesca, thus avoiding so-called ‘material tourism’; the covers are only made to order, and everything is produced within 100 kilometres of where the CUPRA Raval is manufactured. In addition to being made from recycled material, it’s also fully recyclable. “The footprint we leave on the world is very important, and we wanted to highlight this with our new way of designing the CUP Bucket, demonstrating that not only can design, innovation and sustainability go hand in hand, but they must” says the designer.

And what will the person who gets into the new CUPRA Raval ultimately find? “A totally different seat, with a sporty design in which we’ve dared more than ever thanks to the way it’s made. In the future, if we see that customers prefer a different colour or shape, we can easily change its design and colour because they’re already type-approved, so we can update them very quickly” says Sangalli, adding that “the possibilities are endless, and this is thanks to the process behind it because, in the end, an object is the result of how it’s been made.”