As part of PSA Peugeot Citroën’s “Back in the Race” strategy, the Peugeot brand will be aimed more directly at the Volkswagen marque. The French automaker’s new CEO, Carlos Tavares, wants to transform Peugeot from a general mass-market brand into a more upscale volume automaker producing cars as expensive as VW models. If it works, the plan will help PSA return to profitability.
Currently the net pricing of Peugeot cars in Europe is 6.5 percent lower on average than comparable VW models. Tavares aims to reduce this difference to 4.7 percent by 2016 and cut it to 0 percent to 3 percent by 2020. The new CEO says that the latest Peugeot models such as the 208, 2008 and 308 already match rivals from VW in terms of technology and quality.
Peugeot’s lineup will be reduced to 16 models by 2018 from 25 now and to 13 models by 2022. Another objective is to reduce brand engineering and overlapping between the Peugeot and Citroën brands and to focus on segments that are popular worldwide.
While Tavares did not elaborate on how the lineups of the two brands will look in the future, a report from AutoNews Europe cites industry experts and company insiders offering clues about how the Peugeot brand will look like.
According to these sources, Peugeot will stop selling minicars after the recently-launched 108 reaches the end of its life cycle by 2020, leaving the segment to Citroën. Furthermore, the 807 large minivan will not be replaced, leaving the segment to Citroën as well, while the 207 CC, 308 CC and 4008 will not get successors either. Additionally, the slow-selling 3008 and 5008 crossovers may not get follow-up models.
Peugeot will instead focus on the B-, C- and D-segments, with body styles including hatchbacks, sedans and wagons. The brand will also offer crossovers in the C- and D-segments based on the new MP2 modular platform.
By Dan Mihalascu
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