Automotive News Europe - March 2013 - 15

AUTOMOTIVE NEWS EUROPE

AUTOMAKERS

PSA mirrors VW; readies
megaplatform to cut costs
BRUCE GAIN
bgain@crain.com

P

SA/Peugeot-Citroen is planning to
produce its compact, mid-sized and
SUV models on a common platform
that also is likely to underpin models
made by alliance partner General Motors. The struggling French automaker
is looking to borrow from Volkswagen’s
money-saving megaplatform strategy
as a way to stem massive financial
losses that have forced staff cuts and a
planned factory closure in France.
PSA says that by 2014 it will produce
about half of its cars using the Efficient
Modular Platform 2. The company declined to give an more specific number
of cars that will use the platform.
Previously, PSA used three different
platforms to make its compact, midsized and SUV models.
The first models to use the EMP2 will
be the Citroen C4 Picasso and Peugeot
308, which are scheduled to launch
later this year.
PSA says EMP2 will help the company reduce r&d and production costs
because the automaker and its suppliers will develop and produce the same
components for a wide range of sedans,
hatchbacks, wagons, crossovers, cabriolets and coupes.
“PSA, as well as all other manufacturers in Europe, are tightly reigned in by
their finances, especially with regard
to more stringent safety and emissions
regulations,” Ian Fletcher, an analyst
for IHS Automotive, told Automotive
News Europe. “It thus makes a lot
more sense to spread your engineering capabilities more effectively with a
shared architecture.”
A PSA spokesman told Automotive News
Europe that it was “very likely” that a
number of models from GM subsidiaries
Opel and Vauxhall would be based on
the platform as part of the 1-year-old

MARCH 2013

By 2014, PSA wants to underpin half of its cars with the EMP2 architecture
(shown). The first models to use EMP2 will be the Citroen C4 Picasso and
Peugeot 308, which are scheduled to launch later this year.
alliance agreement between the two
automakers. The spokesman would
not comment on which Opel/Vauxhall
models might use the platform, while
Fletcher said he expected EMP2 to underpin Opel’s upcoming Zafira compact
minivan. PSA declined to say how much
it spent to develop EMP2 or how much it
expects to save from using the platform.
VW’s largest megaplatform, known
internally as MQB, cost nearly $70 billion
to create, estimates Morgan Stanley. The
reward for this investment is big. The
projected annual gross savings by 2019
is $19 billion, according to the bank, with
gross margins approaching 10 percent.
“VW is the one that is held up as the
model for this sort of modular approach,” Fletcher said. “There are so
many different vehicles spun off of the
Golf architecture alone, it is almost setting new precedents really.”
By 2019, Morgan Stanley analysts expect VW to use MQB to underpin
4.6 million vehicles ranging from the
new Golf to the next Polo subcompact
to the future-generation Passat.

PSA says that other benefits of EMP2
include a per-car weight reduction of
70kg, which will help reduce average
fuel consumption in future Peugeots
and Citroens by 22 percent, depending
on the model. By using less fuel, EMP2
models also will emit fewer emissions,
but the company declined to give any
exact figures. The EMP2 platform
includes the underbody, suspension
system, powertrain as well as the electric and electronic systems.
PSA will use the new platform at its assembly plants in Sochaux, Rennes, and
Mulhouse, France; Vigo, Spain; Wuhan
and Shenzhen China; Buenos Aires,
Argentina; and Kaluga, Russia.
Other automakers working to expand
the number of models that share a
modular platform include Renault-Nissan, Fiat and Ford. The overall goal is to
find a way to balance the potential savings with the risks, such as the threat
of a global recall if a single part used in
millions of cars fails.
Reuters contributed to this story

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