PARIS — PSA Group will build the new DS 4 compact car at Opel’s factory in Ruesselsheim, Germany, according to French media reports citing union sources.
Opel CEO Michael Lohscheller said in a news release on Monday that a new compact DS vehicle on the group’s EMP2 platform would be built at the Ruesselsheim factory, which is scheduled to build the next-generation Opel Astra compact. PSA would not comment on which model it would be.
L’Est Republicain, a newspaper in eastern France that covers PSA’s factory in Sochaux, reported Tuesday that PSA officials told workers that the DS 4 would be built in Germany rather than Sochaux, as originally planned.
DS, PSA Group’s upscale brand, has not released details of the new model, code-named D41. The previous DS 4 was based on the Citroen C4 and was last sold in 2018. According to DS’s plan to release one new vehicle a year starting in 2018, the DS 4 will arrive in showrooms in 2021, following the DS 9 midsize sedan this year.
Sochaux will be focusing its production efforts on PSA’s new generation EMP2 platform, to be called EMP2 V4, starting in 2022 or 2023. It will be a “multifuel” platform with internal-combustion and full-electric drivetrain options for compact and midsize vehicles, similar to the smaller CMP architecture.
French President Emmanuel Macron and PSA announced last week that the Sochaux factory will build the next generation Peugeot 3008 compact SUV, which will have a full-electric option. The current 3008 is available with gas, diesel and plug-in hybrid powertrains.
Unions at the Sochaux plant said that the new platform would guarantee the factory’s viability for the next decade. The factory, in Peugeot’s ancestral home region, is the largest in France, with some 500,000 vehicles produced in 2019.
In addition to the current 3008, Sochaux also builds the Peugeot 308 compact hatchback and station wagon, and the 508 midsize fastback and station wagon. Some 7,000 people work at the site, which is undergoing a 200 million-euro modernization program.
