GM-Peugeot alliance to jointly develop new platform, SUV, MPV, small car in the offing
Peugeot might have shunned its India plans directly and it might have surrendered its allotted land in Gujarat but it has not lost hopes in developing markets wholly. In alliance with GM, Peugeot will be developing cars for Europe and emerging markets. The cars will primarily include compact SUV, MPV and B segment cars. Thus in all probability the GM-Peugeot car will target Renault Duster, Ford Ecosport and Maruti XA Alpha in particular in India in the SUV segment and Maruti Ertiga, Toyota Innova, Nissan Evalia, Mahindra Xylo in the MUV segment and Maruti Swift, Ford Figo and others in the small car segment.
In a recent joint press release issued, the alliance has showed interest in developing cars for Europe and emerging markets and it has no expressed mention of India but India and Brazil apart from others are the largest emerging markets and no car maker can avoid these in framing its strategy. As pre the alliance reports, it will be developing joint platforms and thus that will be used in GM owned Opel/Vauxhall brand as well as Peugeot. This way both the car makers will be able to launch new cars based on the same platform and this will let them increase their profitability.
However, this will not have any concrete effect until 2016 when the first GM-Peugeot car will be launched. The alliance will also be coming up with a highly frugal, low CO2 petrol motor that will be put under the hood of its brand cars. Notably, it was at the Indian Auto Expo held in January this year, the French car maker was very bullish about India and it showcased Peugeot 508 and Peugeot 208 cars for India but things went wrong then and market slowed down leading to the revision of its strategy.
