Beijing show: Peugeot maps Chinese future

PEUGEOT has outlined its plans for the growing Chinese automotive market, confirming that it will release 18 new models over the next five years, starting with the 308 sedan and updated 3008 that were revealed at the Beijing motor show.

Under its freshly announced Blue Upper strategic development plan, the French brand is aiming to become one of the top-10 most popular brands on the world's primary market, by “aiming higher in terms of customer experience, technologies and products”.

The new product focus has been initiated by the launch of the two new models at the Chinese show, but despite the company's high expectations for the 308 and 3008, neither model will be offered in the Australian market.

Peugeot's local distributor Sime Darby Motors Group PR and communications manager Tyson Bowen confirmed that the models were just for China but their styling continues the Peugeot company language.

“It's a China-specific model and it's not currently on our product plans, but what it does is leverage some of the concepts and gives people a bit more of an understanding of the styling direction that we might feature in our products in the future,” he said.

Like all car brands, Peugeot's previous and sometimes outlandish concepts rarely make it through to production but Mr Bowen said there were elements of the aggressively-styled Quartz concept from the 2014 Paris motor show in the 3008 update.

“Even the updated 3008, if you look at it, it leverages the Quartz concept.

Whilst the cars won't make it here there are certainly things on them that might point to design cues in the future.”The 308 is powered by the company's 1.2-litre PureTech engine coupled with a six-speed automatic transmission, and under China's NAST testing system the 308S hatch version returned a fuel economy figure of 2.9 litres per 100km, covering 1878km on a tank of fuel.

Specification, including safety and equipment, will be geared entirely to the Chinese market, but the 308 sedan shares the EMP2 platform, which underpins the hatchback and wagon.

In the case of the 3008, Peugeot has lightly facelifted the MPV and added some extra gear including a Visio-Park II 360-degree camera.

An all-new 3008 for western markets is due soon, possibly at this year's Paris motor show, and it is expected to shift from its MPV roots to more of a traditional SUV offering.