BMW’s X7 will lead to Rolls-Royce SUV

BMW has confirmed the long-circulating rumour that it will introduce a large, seven-seat X7 SUV to sit above the current X5 in the lineup. The new model will form part of a massive USD$1-billion investment in BMW's factory in Spartanburg, South Carolina, in the US.

The German company already makes the X3, X4 and X5 there and the addition of the X7 will push Spartanburg’s capacity to 450,000 cars a year – making it the biggest BMW plant in the world.

The X7 will be based on the X5’s chassis but is expected to incorporate some of the lessons learned in lightweight construction and the use of carbon-fibre from BMW’s i-range in order to keep its weight down.

The car will be a direct rival to Audi’s second-generation Q7 and will also almost certainly form the basis of Rolls-Royce’s first-ever 4x4. The super-luxury British car maker has long been discussing the possibility of an SUV, and the addition of the X7 to BMW’s lineup makes its appearance that much more likely.

Seat is at long last getting an SUV-crossover to allow it to compete with the likes of the Nissan Qashqai and Peugeot 3008. The new model will go on sale in 2016 and will be based on the same MQB architecture as the current Seat Leon.

“This is an excellent piece of news, since it takes Seat into a new territory, in one of the largest and fastest-growing segments in the world,” Seat chairman Juergen Stackmann said, adding that the SUV “is a major step forward on the road to reaching sustainable profitability for the company”.

The likelihood is that the new car, which is expected to draw inspiration from Seat's 2011 IBX concept, won't be built in Spain. Although Seat builds the Q3 crossover on behalf of Audi at its Martorell plant in Barcelona, the new Seat SUV will probably be twinned with the next-generation Skoda Yeti, and would be built alongside that car in Skoda's Czech Republic factory.

Although Seat expanded its sales last year by 11 per cent, the company hasn’t made a profit since 2007 and the lack of an SUV-style model in a crossover-hungry market has been looking ever more the glaring omission.

Audi's tech boss , Dr Ulrich Hackenberg, has confirmed he's considering an expansion of the TT range beyond the existing coupé and convertible models. With sales of coupés falling rapidly (down by 31 per cent in Europe last year, or 21 per cent if you're looking at premium-badged models) the TT is finding it harder and harder to make a solid business case for itself. Out of the 1.6-million cars that Audi sold last year, just 18,000 were TTs – a fact that makes it much more difficult to defray the expensive investment in aluminium construction for the new model.