This week we take a look at the all new Cupra Raval.
Based on the Volkswagen MEB+ platform this car is designed, developed and produced in Barcelona and it comes with a lot of fresh emotion to urban electric mobility.
Those of you that joined us in Turin earlier 2026 for our first DVN Interior event of the year had the pleasure of listening to Francesca Sangalli Head of CMF at Cupra talking about their Brand and the importance of CMF in the Brand story telling. Also, how they normally start with CMF and then look at Exterior and Interior design.
The Raval seems to have a lot of what Francesca told us about.
In our upcoming event in Cologne we will have Ruben Rodriguez Bosch, Head of Xperience Design at Cupra, speaking and most likely we will hear more about some of the fantastic experiences (He calls it Xperience Design) in the Raval from him – don´t miss that opportunity.
Let´s take a look inside the Raval.
It´s a very sporty and fresh first impression of the interior. You have 2 flat standing screens one for the DIM and one bigger infotainment screen. The DIM screen is almost built in the “old fashioned way” with a kind of visor on top, framing the information in a nice way and adding a lot of drama to the upper Instrument Panel, emphasizing Cupra’s focus on the driver – nicely done!
Francesca told us in Turin about their design approach using parametric design for creating patterns and we see a lot of that in the Raval interior. Quite bold and dramatic adding a lot of nice detailing to the design. Also great for giving that extra little emotion to the ambient light features when the light bounces in the patterns.
Doing parametric patterns on interior parts in such a nice and well balanced way as the Cupra Design Team has managed here is an art form in itself. The “go to” tool is often Grasshopper in combination with Rhino where you can control patterns interactively and Grasshopper generates the surfaces directly. Sometimes the surface quality get´s too poor for production, but there are some Grasshopper “magicians” around that can get the auto generated surfaces to a good enough quality for production. Very powerful tool and results becomes amazing – as we can see in the Raval. Well done!
The interior lighting setup is most impressive. Customizable ambient lighting offers seven selectable environments, with dynamic colours and animations that enrich the onboard experience and accompany digital displays. At the heart of the cockpit, Smart Light Next Generation transforms lighting into an intuitive communication interface between the car and the driver. Integrated into the dashboard, it provides clear visual feedback related to driver assistance systems, such as blind spot monitoring, while also animating in a distinctive way during key performance moments, such as when activating the e-launch function.
Lighting becomes an even more immersive signature thanks to the dynamic light projections on the doors, a unique feature in the segment. It’s done with DLP projection, already seen on BMW’s MINI with projection on the dashboard.
A projector seamlessly integrated into the dashboard delivers customizable motion graphics to the door panels, extending the lighting beyond traditional surfaces.
The interior can be ordered in 4 different ”Packs”: PULSE, IMMERSIVE, FEEL and AHEAD.
The AHEAD interior pack offers sporty bucket seats with 3D knitted upholstery, the first car at Cupra and a unique offering in the segment.
Polestar 4 was the worlds first with 3D knitting in seats.
You can enjoy a video of Francesca Sangalli explaining all about 3D knitting in the Raval seats here.
