Car Design Review 11: “Citroën’s brand position has never been as clear”

Given the offensive by electrified Chinese brands we are seeing two tendencies: either you make cars that are entry-level, or you make very premium cars. The brands in between are struggling. Now everyone is doing great design. We’re fighting at a high level, more so than 10 or 15 years ago. What is also impressive is the level of content the Chinese cars have at such a low price. It’s a big challenge, but something we need to embrace and compete against, in terms of design, creativity and execution.

Since Citroën has been part of the Stellantis Group [created in 2021] its brand position has never been as clear. Actually, it’s much clearer among 14 brands than it was when there were only four brands [as part of PSA]. Citroën is trying to offer mobility for all, so we need a price advantage within the Group.

That’s our role and my teams are embracing it. We leave the premium market to DS and make entry-level cars only. That’s what we showed with the e-C3 launched in 2024. When you think of the price [from £21,990 or €23,000] and what you get in that electric car, it’s quite incredible.

You have to be really aligned with the brand and make strong choices from the start. In a small [4015mm-long] e-C3, you’re not going to have a 13-inch centre screen, another for the driver cluster and one more for the passenger. Or full-leather seats. We also go into the hidden details to save costs. For instance, can we use only one PCB [printed circuit board] to build our headlights or our tail-lights? We were not looking into these things before.

Another example is the reflected screen in the C3. It’s our Citroën ‘head-up display’. It’s low-tech, but gives a seamless effect. We needed the help of Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares to make that happen. It’s not expensive, but the way we designed it makes it a bit more extraordinary. When customers get in the car, it has a ‘wow effect’.

The great thing about using the Stellantis Group ‘Smart car’ platform is that it gives you financial advantages while being flexible. You can still offer multi-energy powertrains and some brands need to be agile in that respect. The fully-electrified platform is what most cars in the Group are working on, but we are on the ‘Smart car’ one.

This platform approach doesn’t mean we won’t be able to make big cars anymore. We’re working on projects like that, but battery tech is evolving so much. You need to find the right balance of autonomy to give you the right price and weight. For us, with new technologies ahead, the future seems brighter than a couple of years ago.

In terms of freedom, we try to push for as many differences between brands as possible on the platform. There are always too many ‘hard points’ to respect, but those are the rules of the game. The e-C3 and C3 Aircross do share the same windscreen and A-pillar, but that’s the challenge of putting a car into production. And it’s more interesting to work on production cars than concept cars, because in the end, you’ll see hundreds of thousands of production cars on the road.

I’ve always seen French brands in general – and Citroën even more so – as very creative. After six years here I can tell you that it is the request of our Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares, brand CEO Thierry Koskas and chief design officer Jean-Pierre Ploué to push as much as we can.

I’ve worked in the industry for more than 20 years and it’s not the same environment everywhere. Sometimes you have a fixed brand that has a benchmark to reach and that’s it. So the creative environment and freedom we have – in our studio a couple of kilometres from Versailles, on the outskirts of Paris – is really something that should attract designers.

Of course, you can look to the past and dream about Citroën’s iconic models. But we don’t. We have new Chinese designers and others from around the world. The team is not big, but our designers can propose anything they want. It’s a luxury.