PSA/Peugeot-Citroen’s new model launches have been delayed because the group’s platform policy is taking longer than expected to develop, PSA CEO Jean-Martin Folz said, in a report carried by Automotive News Europe.
Given European customers’ hunger for novelty, the slowdown partly explains why PSA’s sales fell 2.7 percent to 2.1 million in 2003. Sales at Europe’s No. 2 auto-maker remain sluggish, down 5.6 percent to 333,400 in the first two months of this year.
“We’ve had to redefine our launch schedule,” Folz said. “The full benefit of our platform policy will take more time than planned to materialize.”
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PSA’s platform policy was mapped out in 1998 just after Folz succeeded Jacques Calvet as the French automaker’s CEO.
The Citroen C5, based on the large-car platform 3, and the Peugeot 307, based on medium-car platform 2, were the first models to be built following the new platform policy. Both models were introduced in 2001.
Citroen’s C3 was the first PSA model off the small-car platform 1 in 2003. But it has been harder than expected to make Peugeot’s and Citroen’s most sophisticated cars compatible.
PSA took nine years to develop the 407, the successor to the 406. A model’s lifespan is normally about seven years.
