GENEVA: Two of Europe's best-selling cars, the Renault Clio and Peugeot 208, go head-to-head at the Geneva motor show on Tuesday, as the auto market they dominate faces transformative pressures on its future profits and jobs.
Small certainties are welcome in an industry facing hard-to-quantify strains including Britain's planned exit from the European Union, a U.S.-led assault on trade liberalization and the many billions spent developing a new generation of electric vehicles for which mass demand remains largely unproven.
“Instead of moving forwards, the industry is regressing at a time when emissions targets are getting tougher,” said analyst Felipe Munoz of consulting firm JATO, which compiled the data. With its lower, wider, longer 208, Peugeot has adopted the lighting signature and other design cues from its 3008 and 5008 SUV siblings, whose runaway success has lifted pricing power and driven PSA Group to record profits.Assembly of the 208 will end at the group’s Poissy plant west of Paris, which had handled overflow production of the current model built mainly in Trnava, Slovakia.