PSA Peugeot Citroën and General Motors have formed an alliance. The move will see the US carmaker buy a 7% stake in PSA as part of a share issue by the French automaker. GM says it expects to spend from $400 million to $470 million on that.
“This partnership brings tremendous opportunity for our two companies. The alliance synergies, in addition to our independent plans, position GM for long-term sustainable profitability in Europe,” said GM CEO Dan Akerson. But “each company will continue to market and sell its vehicles independently and on a competitive basis,” the statement added.
The scope of the alliance includes the sharing of vehicle platforms, components and modules, and the creation of a global purchasing joint venture for the sourcing of commodities, components and other goods and services from suppliers with combined annual volumes of approximately $125 billion. Bigger buyer gets better deals, as always.
There is also talk on joint development. GM and PSA said the alliance will at first focus on small and midsize vehicles, MPVs and crossovers. The carmakers may also develop a new common platform for low emission vehicles, with the first model expected to debut in 2016.
Cost savings from the deal will be limited in the first two years, but will eventually amount to $2 billion annually, split equally, the companies said. The deal is expected to close and take effect by the second half of this year.
GM is certainly not new in linking up with other companies. The US carmaker had shares in Suzuki Motor Corp, Isuzu Motors and Subaru maker Fuji Heavy Industries before disposing off the stakes few years ago. In the same period, but in Europe, GM had to pay Fiat to end an unsuccessful alliance. They also flirted with Renault-Nissan before. GM’s Opel brand is not doing well at all in Europe, and this move has it in mind.
On the other hand, Peugeot has a better track record with other carmakers, including JVs to build commercial vans with Fiat and an engine partnership with BMW. PSA also makes diesel powertrains with Ford and sells Mitsubishi models in Europe with its own face and badge.
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Yes!..let’s collaborate to produce some amazing products! :D
How long this partnership will last??
GM has been famous killing automakers
Saab was one of it now…
Next to be Opel..
Once they buy the technology..they will let the maker die by themselve
dont worry, they wont be able to kill PSA Peugeot Citroën like what they did to saab…..the french has too much pride / ‘waterface’ to let an outsider do that!
I don’t think PSA will die, it’s about synergy. And why not, sharing the same motors/developing them together, using the same platform etc. can cut down costs a lot. Developing these things costs a lot, and of course there is the economy of scale. VW does the same thing (or better wants to do the same thing), but of course they are so big that they don’t need to join up with another company to do so. They have developed the MQB platform, which will be the basis for the: Polo, Beetle, Golf, Scirocco, Jetta, Tiguan, Touran, Sharan, Passat, Passat CC, A3, Leon, and probably almost every other car from VW, be it Skoda, Seat, Audi, … The engines will also be shared, gearboxes, etc.
Have you seen the tribute to Saab on Top Gear last week? Seems like it was Saab itself that killed itself by sticking to their principles and not cutting costs when it would sacrifice the quality. Which is admirable, but doesn’t make too much financial sense unless people are willing to pay for that.
Btw. PSA is also working with Toyota, the Aygo/C1/107 was developed together, and that car was relatively successful. Of course Toyota wouldn’t bring it to ASEAN, because, well, it’s actually a decent car (ok, I guess they figured a car of that size wouldn’t sell in Malaysia for the price they would have to sell it for, as all the safety would probably make it too expensive to produce to achieve an in Malaysia realistic price).
perkara yang baik bole kita lihat di bawah pengurusan VW adalah kerana VW pemegang share utama atau 2nd majority share holder adalah ia mampu mengasaskan (standardize) penggunaan platform, material (maybe mengikut lokasi kilang2 berdekatan), transmission, rekabentuk berpusat (walter de silva n italdesign) dan pelbagai lagi cost sharing yg efektif.
namun berlainan dgn gagasan “venture” syarikat automotif yg lain yg kebanyakan hanya berkongsi pintar atas dasar win-win situation yang meliputi segelintir model atau satu dua model shj lebih tepat. dasar penlesenan rekabentuk dan teknologi masih lagi agak susah kerana tiada wujudnya perkongsian share saham syarikat yang ketara (ini menyukarkan membuat keputusan di peringkat tertinggi).
jadi sekarang apa yang kita lihat adalah gagasan VW (german power), the french (PSA) dan juga gagasan Japans (toyota-daihatsu-subaru). namun di peringkat lokal kita? rasanya boleh kita (lebih tepat di tujukan peada p1,p2, naza dan lain2 syarikat lokal) fikirkan langkah yang lagi elok dan lagi proaktif mencabar gelombang globalisasi ini :)
I think the deal is very new and the sharing is only related to Opel and Peugeot, not all of GM brands and models. Its a small alliance which should not be projected too much. In fact, it is not in the interest of Peugeot to project much of this as GM has a reputation which is not as good as peugeot, these days. Peugeot makes nice cars and people trust Peugeot brand. PSA is regarded as one of the very good names in automobile, contrary to GM.
Are you sure? I had the feeling that while the Opel reputation isn’t that great, Peugeot’s reputation isn’t either. They are almost always in the bottom part of reliability statistics… more often than not the very bottom part. Citroen is similar, or Renault. That’s not saying that those cars are not good, but they tend to be a bit more problematic. They are cheaper though, so that balances it out.
looking at it positively, hopefully with two bottom rungers getting into bed together, an all-star cast could be the upcoming result. as the saying goes, ‘when you’re rock bottom ,the only way you can go is up’.