Citroen Plans To Make Life Hard For Maruti’s Ertiga By Launching An MPV

Expected to arrive in 2025, the people carrier will also get an electric alternative

• Citroen’s Indian line-up to include an MPV.

• Firm’s new models to get electric variants as well

• The new MPV will likely be a market-specific model and not a localised version of a global product.

• Citroen MPV could be a rival to the likes of the Maruti Ertiga and Kia Carens.

For representational purposes only

The Citroen line-up in India is set to grow beyond SUVs, according to Carlos Tavares, CEO of Stellantis (the conglomerate of which Citroen is a part of). The French carmaker’s only offering at the moment is the C5 Aircross, while the sub-4m C3 is due to arrive in June.

“We are not only going to bring the compact cars less than 4 metres, you will have people mover to MPV, CUV products in India and all these products, EVs will be an alternative offered,”  stated the CEO. Tavares was present as the Stellantis group was highlighting India’s role in its current global strategy. 

These models will be coming in the next three years and will likely be newly developed for the Indian market while taking inspiration from Citroen’s existing global range of cars. The carmaker seems to have adopted the approach of offering both combustion engine and battery electric variants of the same cars in India.

Tavares recognises the possibility to have recurrent profit in India if you do things the Indian way. “There is a longer record of people who came and left. One has to learn from the Indian way of doing things,” he added.

The Indian MPV space is quite fractured with popular models of different sizes that do not really compete with one another on equal terms. The smallest one would be the sub-4m Renault Triber, while the Maruti Ertiga is arguably the most popular of the lot.

Kia jumped into the fray with the Carens which is positioned slightly above the Maruti MPV and then comes the queen, the Toyota Innova Crysta. Since Stellantis intends to use Citroen to cater to the affordable segments, its MPV will likely be a rival to the likes of the Ertiga and Carens.

The first Citroen EV is slated to arrive in 2023 with the MPV likely to arrive two years later.

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