Stellantis is engaged on 4 totally different platforms that can cowl all kinds of electrical vehicles. STLA Small, STLA Medium, and STLA Massive are being engineered as unibody architectures with a number of battery packs in addition to front-, rear-, and all-wheel drive configurations. There’s additionally STLA Body to underpin more durable body-on-frame vans and SUVs. The automotive conglomerate says every platform can assist the manufacturing of two million automobiles per yr.
When the Citroën e-C3 was launched this week, the French model carrying the double chevron emblem mentioned its trendy small hatchback will not use any of the 4 STLA platforms. As a substitute, it’ll sit on a fifth structure tailor-made to Europe but in addition to region-specific fashions that shall be bought in South America and India. Renaud Tourte, the person accountable for Sensible Automobile, has now advised Automotive Information that about seven vehicles are at present being developed with this {hardware}.
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Not all of them shall be EVs since Stellantis’ Sensible Automobile platform has been engineered to accommodate combustion engines as effectively. The arhitecture isn’t fully new because it’s derived from CMP, developed by PSA. An even bigger model of the e-C3 is coming, in line with Tourte, who went on to say not less than two different manufacturers will launch vehicles beginning subsequent yr. When requested about whether or not the next-generation Fiat Panda goes to be one among them, Tourte strongly urged that it’s going to by saying it is “not fully silly to assume that.” Its debut has already been confirmed for July 11, 2024 to mark Fiat’s a hundred and twenty fifth anniversary.
How low cost are these vehicles going to be? Effectively, the Citroën e-C3 is initially going to value €23,300 ($24,600 at present alternate charges) in France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, and Portugal when it goes on sale in early 2024. A lower-range variant will cut back the asking worth to solely €19,990 ($21,100) and can hit the market in 2025.
With the newly launched e-C3 and future fashions, Citroën desires to realize not less than a 5% market share in Europe. Nevertheless, the competitors is more and more more durable on the Previous Continent as increasingly more Chinese language manufacturers are bringing their reasonably priced EVs. Lest we neglect Renault builds the favored Dacia Spring within the Individuals’s Republic and ships it to Europe with nice success.
