Peugeot and Citroen electric cars for Australia

French electric vehicle onslaught extends to local showrooms.

PSA boss Carlos Tavares’ announcement of a raft of EV and plug-in hybrid vehicles from the Peugeot, Citroen and DS means that Australian dealers are in line for clean, green French machines. Part of a new ‘Push to Pass’ global ‘technical offensive’, it comes on the back of Tavares’ financial restructure of the company, which is now officially ‘Groupe PSA’. Four EVs and seven PHEVs will roll out by 2021.

While it means more EVs and plug-ins for our showrooms, the entire range won’t be available for local purchasers. Instead, Australian new-car buyers will likely be given a unique mix of the PSA products that will be on sale in China and Europe.

The Fractal was shown at the 2015 Frankfurt motor show, and is an EV coupe that features a pair of electric motors, one on each axle. It uses the new e-CMP (Electric Common Modular Platform) developed in conjunction with Groupe PSA shareholder, Dongfeng.

Seven PHEVs will be developed using the EMP2 platform – which underpins the Peugeot 308 and Citroen C4 Picasso, among others – to be launched over three years from 2019. These, says Citroen, will all be SUV and CUVs, so we could see a plug-in successor to the Citroen C4 Cactus using electric all-wheel drive, and with a claimed 60-kilometre electric range.

Bruesewitz told Wheels that he doesn’t expect the new models to necessarily see the Peugeot, Citroen and DS brands rocket up the sales charts. Their focus, he explained, is on appealing to the motoring equivalent of the tech world’s ‘early adopter’ market. “I think it is common sense that EV/PHEV customers are trailblazers; customers that want to be at the leading edge, who want to be the first movers in their social network and also want to make a sustainable statement. Since those are the only motivational factors at the moment here in Australia, it is still a niche market at least.”