Peugeot contemplates return to U.S. market

[Plex]

Strong North American small car sales could be enough to tempt France�s sometimes-quirky car-makers back to the U.S. Rising fuel costs, a trend to smaller engines and greater environmental awareness might be enough for Peugeot to return to the country it abandoned in the late 1980s.

�If the market continues to go smaller, then we could have something very interesting for US customers,� Christian Peugeot, the fifth-generation scion of the 117-year-old car-maker, told Leftlane.

�We are studying many things about the US and we always have,� he admitted.

�We are constantly reviewing it. Will they (the customers) continue to buy smaller cars or is it a panicked surge that will not last? This is the key for us,� Peugeot, the company�s Communication and Strategy Manager, suggested.

While Peugeot, one of three family members involved in the day-to-day running of the family company, said recent developments had revitalized its interest in North America, he admitted its immediate priorities were elsewhere.

�We have done China and we would go to India and South America first before we look to the U.S.,� he said.

Peugeot (the, err, car-maker, not the man) is expanding rapidly in the developing world, with strong sales from its plant in China. It has also announced a 70 percent share of a joint venture operation with Mitsubishi in a car-making plant 100km from Moscow, and will build its 50 millionth car in July.

�We left the U.S. because the market out-grew us and we didn�t feel we should follow it,� he said.

�If it�s a market with big cars and big engines and big consumption, then that�s not our way to do business. If it�s not our way to do business, we know better than to get involved in it.

�If they buy smaller cars, then we may have something to offer the U.S. in quality and performance and style that they can�t buy today,� he said.

The Peugeot family still owns 30 percent of the capital of PSA, the parent company of both the Peugeot and Citroen brands, which have (with Fiat) the lowest average CO2 emissions in Europe. The Peugeot range, from its people mover and 607 limo down to the 107, averages 142 grams of CO2/km.

�Ecological ideas will come to the U.S. one day and the big engines and big consumption cannot last,� he insisted.

�Maybe one day the diesel market in the US would be worth us to go there.

�We are the masters with diesel technology and we can do what we can to help make diesel stronger and more accepted there.�

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