French PSA Group will soon complete production of its subcompact city cars Peugeot 108 and Citroen C1 due to falling sales and tighter emission standards. This is reported with reference to its own sources Reuters.
As specifies Automotive News, PSA management decided two years ago to sell to Toyota its stake in a joint venture in the Czech Republic, where Citroen C1, Peugeot 108 and Toyota Aygo models are produced on the same assembly line.
This decision is due to the desire to leave the unprofitable sector of the market, which has shown a gradual decline in recent years. According to the analytical agency HIS Markit, if in 2010 A-segment cars in Europe accounted for up to 10.9% of sales of all passenger cars, then in 2019 their share decreased to 7.4%. At the same time, slightly larger B-class cars now account for up to one third of sales.
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In addition, PSA is forced to install costly emission filtering systems on its small budget cars to meet tightening environmental standards. Finally, the French unite soon with the Italian-American alliance Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) and through cooperation will gain access to hybrid and electric technologies for small cars. For example, the compact models Fiat 500 and Panda, which are the bestsellers in their class in Europe, are available in petrol-electric and all-electric versions.
The new automobile concern, which will appear as a result of the complete merger of PSA and FCA, will be named Stellantis… The deal is expected to allow the French, Italians and Americans to significantly reduce the costs of developing future cars, as well as reduce the cost of producing cars. According to the preliminary forecast, the new alliance in the first year of its existence should sell about 8.7 million vehicles worldwide and will be second only to Volkswagen, Toyota and Renault – Nissan – Mitsubishi in terms of sales.
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