Peugeot and its partner and shareholder Dongfeng have launched the new 508 and 308 (called 308S in China) at the Guangzhou Auto Show.
Scheduled to arrive in Chinese dealerships in January 2015, the Peugeot 508 is expect to rack up 40,000 sales in its first year on the market. Built at the Wuhan plant, the 508 is largely the same car as the model offered in Europe.
The Peugeot 308S is in fact the hatchback version of the 308, with the letter “S” coming from “Supreme, Sport and Smart,” according to Peugeot. The model has the ambitious aim of revolutionizing the mentalities of Chinese customers, who are used to buy sedans.
The Peugeot 308S is offered with three petrol engines in China: 1.6 THP, 1.2 THP and 1.6 CVVT. All units are fitted as standard with a Stop and Start system. Another Chinese debut is the facelifted Peugeot 3008, which gains larger headlights and a smaller grille than the model sold in Europe, as well as new standard and available features such as an electrically operated panoramic roof, 7-inch touchscreen, color head-up display, electric height-adjustable passenger seat tyre pressure monitoring system and aluminum roof bars.
At the Guangzhou Auto Show Peugeot also announced its plans for the Chinese market, where it sold more than 314,000 vehicles in the first 10 months of this year, up 41 percent than in the same period last year.
The French carmaker has big ambitions for 2015, expecting 450,000 sales – 20 percent more than projected sales for this year. Growth will come thanks to the addition of new dealerships, with the company targeting 530 dealers at the end of next year that would cover 85 percent of the country’s territory (up from 81.5 percent at the moment).
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