MADRID – PSA Peugeot Citroen clarifies the new vehicle codenamed P24 and to be assembled at its Vigo plant in Spain starting in 2019 will not be the Peugeot 208 B-car as previously announced, but the Peugeot 2008, a successor to its urban CUV.
The reasons for the ambiguity that until now had surrounded the vehicle, previously considered as a possible successor to the Citroen C-Elysee and Peugeot 301 sedans, are not clear.
There may have been an error of French-language interpretation during PSA CEO Carlos Tavares’s talks with Spanish authorities.
Another possible explanation for the ambiguity is PSA’s reluctance to give clues to rival Volkswagen. VW recently announced it was awarding a second model – expected to be a CUV built on the Polo platform – to its Landaben plant near Pamplona that would compete directly with the Peugeot 2008 to be assembled in Vigo.
Both the 2008, slightly smaller than the current generation, and Volkswagen CUVs also compete with the Renault Captur, Opel Mokka and a future CUV to be assembled by VW subsidiary SEAT at its Martorell plant near Barcelona, using the same platform of SEAT’s Ibiza model.
The current Peugeot 2008 has been assembled since 2012 in Mulhouse, France, and since 2015 in Puerto Real, Brazil. More than 200,000 units of the 2008 were sold last year.
