Peugeot Citroen May Develop Cars with General Motors in India

Another significant announcement has been made at the Beijing Auto Show 2012 by PSA Peugeot Citroen that it might build cars with its new global alliance partner General Motors in India as well. This might force the company to scrap the planned investment of 850 million USD (650 million Euros) in its factory. According to the head of Asian operations for Peugeot, Mr. Gregoire Olivier, the company will seek the help of GM factories and the companies can together explore new possibilities to help Peugeot return to the Indian subcontinent and for this surely there is no need of using 600 million euros. He added that if everything goes as planned, the company would bring up its own plants in future.

The spokesperson of General Motors, Lori Arpin just indicated without any kind of detailing that the company has no plans of assembling cars for Peugeot in India. General Motors is already in a joint venture with the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp under which the company sells cars like Chevrolet Spark and Chevrolet Beat in the Indian car market. The company is also launching soon the Chevrolet Sail hatchback and sedan and 7-seater Chevrolet Enjoy MPV. In India, the company’s plants are located at Mumbai and Halol in Gujarat. The auto giant from Paris, Peugeot was present in India till 1997 in a joint venture with Premier Automobile Ltd., the partnership however did not last long.

The company had been looking for opportunities to enter the budding market of India for two years before September last year when it announced an investment for a plant in Gujarat. Peugeot has maintained its plan of marking its re-entry in India with a small compact car. According to the Chief Executive Office of General Motors, Mr. Dan Akerson, the partnership between the American and the French auto giants is basically a ‘Euro-centric play’ but the opportunities of co-operation always exist in the markets of Asia and South America and other technology specific markets.