Having finalized its 2.2 billion euro acquisition of Opel from General Motors on August 1st, PSA Groupe will support its newest division in introducing electric cars. However, the switch must be profitable, said PSA CEO Carlos Tavares when speaking to German newspaper Bild am Sonntag.
“If it works and companies can be profitable that’s good. But if it does not gain acceptance in the market, then everybody: industry, employees, and politicians have a big problem,” Tavares told the paper.
Regulators and politicians around the world are supporting electric cars following the Volkswagen’s diesel emissions scandal, when the automaker was caught cheating to cover up higher-than-expected levels of pollution.
“We as PSA will make the technology available to Opel to pursue further electrification. If Opel wants to become a fully electric brand some day, we’re ok with that, providing it is profitable,” Tavares said in a joint interview with new Opel Chief Executive Michael Lohscheller.
Tavares added that EVs will need to be accepted in the marketplace without any subsidies, which runs contrary to current trends of countries and states subsidizing electric car sales with discounts, tax breaks, and other forms of incentives like HOV lane use, free or priority parking, and free charging in public places.
Opel recently introduced GM’s Ampera-e in Europe. The vehicle is a rebadged version of the Chevrolet Bolt EV launched by GM in December 2016.
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Translation: PSA will be allowed to badge resell the Bolt as the Ampera-e, but PSA will not have access to Bolt R&D or technology.
Now, will you please send me the Ampera-e grille, so I can install it on a Bolt.
Tavares is so cute pretending that Opel has the power to make autonomous decisions. Opel will be run from France with a few German actors pretending to be in charge. Nearly every Opel will be a re-skin.
To satisfy political considerations Opel will probably develop a small handful of products that were already planned out previously by PSA. Maybe Opel will handle new PSA EVs as this won’t take away any French jobs?
The only way to extract maximum profits is through such tight integration. Traverses shouldn’t need to lie about it. GM should have further integrated Russelheim into GM–more than just an Astra-based Cruze–to bring the operation back into black.