FRANKFURT -- Opel will build a new model for PSA Group's upscale DS brand at its home factory of Ruesselsheim near Frankfurt.
Production of the model will start in summer 2021, Opel said in a news release on Tuesday. Opel did not specify which model will be built for DS.
The DS model will bring to three the number of vehicles built at the factory. Currently the Insignia midsize car is built there.
The next generation of the Opel Astra will also built at the factory starting at the end of next year.
The DS model and the new Astra will both be based on PSA's EMP2 compact/midsize vehicle platform. The platform is used for PSA brand s' vehicles including the Peugeot 308 and Opel Grandland X.
Production at Ruesselsheim is currently halted due to the coronavirus pandemic. An Opel spokesman said output would restart in the near term, declining to specify further.
PSA's manufacturing chief Yann Vincent said in the release that the Ruesselsheim plant has improved its competitiveness, with a focus on performance and quality.
In September, PSA CEO Carlos Tavares told German journalists that the plant would have to improve if it wanted to get a third model. Tavares said PSA's factories in France were able to operate at benchmark profitability.
"Sochaux is the most efficient plant in France," Tavares during a media round table at the Frankfurt auto show on Sept. 11. "Currently between Sochaux and Ruesselsheim the gap in manufacturing costs is not less than 60 percent, perhaps more. It's enormous."
PSA began switching Opel's lineup to its own platforms after it bought the German automaker from General Motors in 2017.
