00:00You are supporting expensive technologies so you are not really supporting an
00:04expansion of a European car market. We are in Europe at less than 10% of
00:09electrified vehicles and we have to accelerate. You cannot reduce everything
00:13to price.
00:19Welcome to the Big Question, the series from Euronews where we sit down with
00:24some of the biggest names in industry. I'm Eleanor Butler and today I'm joined
00:29by Xavier Chardon, CEO at Citroën. Thank you so much Xavier for being with us
00:35here today. Chinese brands have seen significant success in Europe. For
00:41example BYD has been very popular in terms of its EVs. What does this mean for
00:47Citroën?
00:49I mean Chinese are strong competitors. We know that the Chinese market is by far
00:54the number one market in terms of electrification so of course the Chinese
00:58brands come with a lot of knowledge but Citroën you know we have 107 years of
01:03history. We exist since 1919. We have a strong DNA, strong innovation pattern and
01:09we believe that it's not the first time that we are facing competition. We had
01:13the Japanese, South Koreans, now we have the Chinese that are coming in. We have to
01:18adapt, we have to electrify our models. We have also to be I would say very cautious in
01:24terms of affordability. That's why we have decided to reposition the price of the
01:28EC3. The car is now available with European range below 20,000 euro. In France with
01:35incentives it's even one of the most affordable EV in the market. Started at
01:4013,900 euro after incentives so we are democratizing electrification and we are not
01:46afraid of Chinese. Citroën is an established well-known brand but given that there are so
01:59many cheap Chinese alternatives in Europe do you think that brand loyalty really
02:05exists nowadays? Brand loyalty at Citroën is still strong. We are at above 50 percent so
02:10we have a strong base of loyal customers. The price is a very important element of the buying
02:16process but you cannot reduce everything to price. If you are focusing on price you may be
02:21overtaken by newcomers like Chinese or other brands that will emerge by promoting their cars.
02:28So you need to be affordable but to have also content that stands out in the market. That's also
02:34why we put eight years warranty because pricing is important but the value of a car is even more
02:39important in Europe. A recent independent study claimed that the Citroën C3 was the cheapest car
02:45to maintain in France. Is this something that you think about when you're manufacturing your cars?
02:50Exactly because you know the list price is important but what is even more important when you keep your
02:56cars for eight or nine years is the TCO so total cost of ownership. So not only the price but also
03:03the consumption of the car and the C3 is very very low on consumption and also the maintenance.
03:09When you buy a car when you use a car it's the second expense in the household after the house. So
03:14this is very important that we make a force there and this is absolutely a key for the Citroën brand.
03:19And one of the key recent developments for European car makers relates to an EU decision to ease a ban on
03:27sales of petrol and diesel cars after 2035. Are you happy about this decision?
03:32You can see the glass half full of half empty. Half full because we see that there's a potential for
03:38improvement and understanding about the situation and the rules that were defined in 2017. We see that the
03:45market is not moving into electrification as fast as anticipated but half empty because there are many many
03:52topics that are not covered yet. If I take one example on the LCV, people today are not willing
04:00to buy electric LCVs because it's simply not answering the way they use the car. When you use a LCV you cannot
04:06charge at home, you cannot charge in the office. The TCO is not competitive yet so we are in Europe at less
04:12than 10 percent of electrified vehicles and we have to accelerate and here we see that the European Union
04:17has made a slight effort but it's not far enough. And the new EU proposal softens the emissions ban
04:24but on the other hand it also requires the use of green steel and biofuels in non-electric cars.
04:32Is this a realistic suggestion? I would say it's a slight opening because of course you are not at
04:37100 percent yet but you have this 90 percent but for the 10 percent that are remaining you have like
04:44you said biofuel. It's good but what you have to bear in mind is that those are three expensive
04:49technologies and today if you look at the European market before Covid and after Covid the market lost
04:56three million cars. Those three million cars, 60 percent of them come from cheap cars or entry models,
05:03cars that were below 15 000 euros that disappeared and you know by promoting e-fuel, by promoting range
05:09extender, by promoting plug-in hybrid you are supporting expensive technologies so you are not
05:14really supporting an expansion of a European car market. So this is where we hope that we will have
05:20a bit more of understanding about this situation and bring rules that make cars more affordable.
05:25Do you worry that a relaxing of the ban will actually put Europe behind say other countries like China
05:32that are really steaming forward with this green technology? We have to react especially if you
05:36look at battery technology this is absolutely important that we reduce our dependency to the
05:42to the Chinese producer and that's why on Stellantis we have decided to invest in a joint venture.
05:48In France we will do another one a joint venture also with CATL which is a Chinese leader in terms of
05:53battery technology and we believe that with this joint venture 50-50 we will also gain
05:58understanding about the technology and keep or keep progressing and also get access to the future
06:05technologies. And in terms of your sales over the last few years are you seeing a really marked change
06:12in terms of preferences for electric vehicles also for petrol and diesel cars? What is very interesting is
06:17that in general we see a slight acceleration of the electrification but at a rather low pace we will be
06:25around 20 percent of electrified vehicles in Europe in 2025 so one car out of five but Europe has bigger you have
06:35big big differences and between markets like Norway 95 percent of the cars sold in 2025 were pure electric vehicles
06:43on the other side if you look at Croatia Italy you are below five percent so the 20 percent is a spectrum is
06:50an average of a very very different spectrum Citroen in 2025 we doubled our sales of electric vehicles
06:58and Stellantis was formed five years ago from a merger between PSA and Fiat Chrysler automobiles
07:06what has changed since 2021? I would say the fact that we are now part of Stellantis group
07:12is giving us more volume more more scale so if I look at the C5 across for example we have the chance to
07:19to have a fantastic new platform that we share with our colleagues of Peugeot, Jeep and Opel and this
07:26is bringing a new state of technology if we were alone we wouldn't be able to have for example electric
07:32vehicles a range up to 680 kilometers so we try to optimize the the scale through Stellantis but still
07:41keep our DNA that is pretty unique great thank you so much for sharing your time and coming on the big
07:45question it was a great pleasure thanks for visiting us
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