Peugeot was the most popular brand in Europe last year, when sales climbed 8.1% to 952,000 units. Citroen deliveries grew 7.2% to 689,000. The Citroen total includes 85,900 units of the newly launched DS brand of...
Output could reach 400,000 units this year, compared with the 2014 total of 319,000 – a 14% improvement over 2013. Figuerelas’s capacity is 450,000 units.
The Vigo plant was awarded the K9 program in part because of union concessions, including a 2-tier wage structure, that lowered labor costs relative to a competing PSA plant in Slovakia.
Suzuki will finish the year with about 2,700 deliveries, down 88% from its high-water mark of 22,051 in 2007, but the automaker’s Spanish sales chief expects nothing less than a near-50% sales surge in 2015.
SEAT union officials hope to make up the capacity shortfall at Martorell by landing both a smaller version of an upcoming CUV awarded to a Czech Republic plant and the new Audi A1 now being assembled in Brussels.
CEO Jacques Pieraerts projects 2015 sales of 47,000 vehicles, a 10% improvement over 2014. He pegs the increase to hybrids’ share of Toyota Spain’s overall volume rising to 27%.