Opel And PSA To Share Four Platforms. But Will They Share Plants?

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

After a lot of he loves me, he loves me not, GM and Peugeot PSA finally took their fledgling 7 percent relationship a few concrete steps forward. At least on paper. GM and PSA will not just buy new parts together. They will share platforms, the key to make joint purchasing work. The timing of this announcement, coinciding with a bailout by the French government, however is a bit unfortunate.

According to a statement published today, PSA Peugeot Citroen and General Motors agreed on the following projects:

  • A joint program for a compact-class Multi-Purpose Van for Opel/Vauxhall and a compact-class Crossover Utility Vehicle for the Peugeot brand.
  • A joint Multi-Purpose Vehicle program for the small car segment for Opel/Vauxhall and the Citroen brand.
  • An upgraded low CO2 small car segment platform to feed Opel/Vauxhall’s and PSA’s next generation of cars in Europe and other regions.
  • A joint program for mid-size cars for Opel/Vauxhall and the Peugeot and Citroen brands.

The first vehicles on these common programs will be launched by the end of 2016.

Germany’s Automobilwoche [sub] snidely remarks that “basically, these four segments had been envisaged since the alliance was announced last spring.” True savings could be achieved if these joint models would be manufactured in joint plants, but Opel did not want to comment on that.

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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  • Matthew Guy Matthew Guy on Oct 24, 2012

    This is like tying two rocks together and throwing them overboard.

  • Alluster Alluster on Oct 24, 2012

    I would say "joint plants" are still under consideration since GME and PSA would rather wait till they decide which plant(s) each of them would be individually closing, before they can decide who can build what, where. However, the the platform sharing thingy is a good second step after the "joint purchasing organization". It costs around USD $1B to design/develop a platform. This collaboration would amount to a total combined savings of USD $4B. PSA is no small auto maker. It sold 500,000 more units than Honda in 2011. It is still bigger than Honda even if you consider the sales losses for Honda in 2011 due to the Tsunami/Quake. With 210,000 global employment and 110,000 in France alone, there is no way the current socialist government in France will let PSA sink. The other good development is that the French govt has not asked for any guarantees against job losses in exchange for the state aid. The only three guarantees asked for are to appoint government and union board representatives, halt dividend payments and scrap stock-option awards to executives.

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