GM and PSA in alliance talks - French minister

Peugeot 208 with poorly edited Opel badge 22.02.2012

French Labor Minister Xavier Bertrand has divulged that PSA/Peugeot-Citroën and General Motors are in discussions about a possible manufacturing alliance. Bertrand explained on radio station Europe1 that he was told this information by PSA CEO Philippe Varin.

The intentions of the alliance would be to consolidate the European loses of both companies with reduced production costs, according to Reuters.

The main strategy in achieving economies of scale pertains to the sharing of vehicles and parts as opposed to an exchange of shareholdings. However, if any capital exchanges were to take place, they would be only symbolic involving very small amounts.

As a result, the development of engines and transmissions as well as entire vehicles could be shared between the Peugeot/Citroën and Opel/Vauxhall brands.

Furthermore, with a gloomy outlook for Europe in the years to come, PSA could benefit from GM's success in China and Brazil. Speculating even further, GM could facilitate PSA's return to the U.S. market since it left in 1992.

Despite the potential synergies, PSA must remain cautious with consideration to the recent unfruitful alliance with Mitsubishi established in 2010.

Source: autonews.com

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Stitch 626

And what about the alliance between BMW and PSA for their engines MINI/Peu 208 / and Citroen DS3 ???

February 22, 2012 4:30 pm

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clash_189

By looking into their line up, most of the PSA cars are/were co developed or shared platform with other auto makers, 107/C1 with Toyota, iOn-4007-4008 with Mitsubishi (though all except the diesel engine was purely developed by Japanese party), commercial vehicle with Fiat (for more than 10 years), partnering with Ford for diesel engine, and THP engine with BMW group. While 30x series has no partner to develop, the platform gives life to MPV and crossover model. It leaves the saloon series with no partner to decrease the BEP and sharing next generation Insignia with 508/9 seems a good move. Considering both marques have intended to go up market with few coupes, saloons and big SUVs, European market outlook does not look that good and hence going to Asia, NA and South American is a practical solution to market those up market vehicles. Recently Opel sells Astra GTC in Australia priced $10k above Cruze and it sells comparable well for 3 door hatchs, though C30 is still light year ahead. I also would like to note that though PSA has presence in China and South America, they aren't that popular except for few handy cheap vehicles and Opel, as I know in Asia Pasific, is only sold in HK, China, Taiwan, SGP and recently Australia; and their South America sales is very small (I think only 1 or 2 countries)-mostly due to Chevrolet brand.

February 22, 2012 5:22 pm

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Kid_Voltron

whoah...hold on to your horses there buddy, before you you mislead a lot of people, PSA develops most of it's cars alone than you are implying, the 107/C1 is the only non commercial vehicle they co developed with someone else, the 4007/8 and iMiev/ion are Mitsubishi developed from ground on up. BMW has never shared platforms nor developed cars with PSA, they co-developed the Prince engine. the 20X/30X/300X/40X/50X/500X/60X (along with sister Citroens) are all exclusively developed by PSA, the Sevel Nord Venture with FIAT for commercial cars was terminated last year and will cease to exist in 2017 I believe. PSA has presence in South America and China already, so the article doesn't really say much as to how the tie-up will benefit PSA in said regions. Please refrain from writing of something you know little about cause your tone is affirmitive and thus misinforming.

-2

February 22, 2012 9:49 pm

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clash_189

Hi Kid Voltron, thank to correct my writing because I made some mistakes there and I neither know that the tie between PSA and FIAT will end their commercial vehicle partnership in the next 5 years. To be honest I would say there are better partner for PSA such as Mazda which currently looking to lower their R&D expenses for future models. More importantly Mazda has several plants located in places where labor isn't that expensive, it could help PSA to manufacture their mid-large size vehicle there without making them awfully overpriced such as C6 and 607 or 807 and C8. Even though I believe the idea of bringing GM Europe and PSA together is to keep most of the manufacturing plants operating within Europe (preferably France and Germany).

February 23, 2012 11:19 pm

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