PSA to launch EV-optimized platform in 2023

PARIS -- PSA Group will introduce a new architecture optimized for electric vehicles in 2023 that will underpin compact and midsize models.

The architecture, the Electric Vehicle Modular Platform or eVMP, will allow PSA to build battery-electric cars with a range of 400 km to 650 km, battery storage of 60 to 100 kilowatts, and up to 250 kilowatts of power, while still being efficient to build and produce, CEO Carlos Tavares said. That 650 km range “is what we believe we’ll need by 2025,” he added.

The platform will also be adapted for hybrid derivatives "for overseas markets," he said on Tuesday during PSA’s first-half financial results webcast, without providing details. The eVMP platform will allow for front-wheel or all-wheel-drive.

"We're preparing our platform strategy for when there are mostly EVs that will be sold," Tavares said, adding that the company’s vision is to transition from having two “multi-energy” platforms to having two dedicated electric-vehicle platforms.

By 2025, 100 percent of PSA's model range will have electrified versions, Tavares said. From 2025, PSA will have two dedicated electric vehicle platforms: eVMP and the coming eCMP, for small and what Tavares called "B-plus" segment cars. 

The group's current full-electric models, introduced in 2019 and 2020, are compact and small cars such as the Peugeot e-208 that are built on the CMP "multi-energy" platform, which can accommodate gasoline, diesel or electric drivetrains. Larger compact and midsize vehicles are built on the EMP2 platform, which can accommodate plug-in hybrid powertrains as well as internal-combustion ones, but is not suitable for battery electric only.

A PSA spokeswoman said the new EV-optimized platforms would not immediately replace the group’s two current platforms. “This is a transition from two multi-energy platforms (CMP and EMP2) to two platforms dedicated to electric vehicles,” she said in an email. 

Tavares said it was not yet the time to decide whether the eVMP platform would be used to underpin future vehicles from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, as PSA and FCA have not yet finalized their merger agreement. But, he said, "it is quite clear that we believe in the competitiveness of eVMP, and at the appropriate time we'll discuss it with the other part of the family."

Analyst Philippe Houchois of Jefferies, in a note to investors, said the eVMP platform would be “a material source of savings for the PSA-FCA merger.”

The eVMP platform has "extended carryover" from the EMP2 platform, PSA said, which has kept development costs to a minimum and avoided large-scale factory retooling. Tavares said the total cost was in the "hundreds of millions" of euros.

One key to cost savings is designing the platform so that it can use standard components such as battery packs. PSA is working toward fully integrating its electric vehicle supply chain, but battery cell production in two planned factories with Total/Saft, one in France and one in Germany, is not expected to come on line until 2023 at the earliest, Tavares said.

The first vehicle on the new platform is likely to be the next-generation 3008 compact SUV, which French President Emmanuel Macron announced at the end of May would be built at PSA's factory in Sochaux, eastern France. PSA is investing about 200 million euros to prepare the factory for the new platform.

Two of PSA Group's mass-market rivals, Volkswagen Group and Renault Group, have also recently developed platforms that are optimized for electric vehicles. VW Group's MEB, or modular electric drive matrix, will be used by the VW, Seat, Skoda and Audi brands, starting with the VW ID3 this summer. VW Group's development partner, Ford Motor, will also be able to use a version of it.

Renault's CMF-EV platform, jointly developed with Nissan, will appear in the Nissan Ariya SUV and at least two coming models from Renault by 2022.