Recently, Dongfeng Peugeot revealed that its cumulative sales in 2021 reached 51,056 vehicles, an increase of 74% year-on-year, for French cars, this is already the best sales performance in recent years, in 2014, 2015, DPCA has annual sales of 700,000 for 2 consecutive years, 600,000 vehicles in 2016, in these three years, the sales of French cars increased by 2 million, but then, the sales of French cars began to plummet off a cliff, 380,000 in 2017, 250,000 in 2018, 110,000 vehicles in 2019 and 50,000 vehicles in 2020. From 700,000 to 50,000, the French car took only 5 years.
Many people attribute the plummeting sales of French cars to the fact that PSA does not understand marketing, but few people will attribute the reason to the technical strength of French cars, but I will tell you that the sales of French cars are not good because of the lack of core technology. In the past two years, the sales of Great Wall Motors, Geely Automobile, and BYD Automobile have fully proved that in order to sell well, solid technical strength, excellent product design and excellent marketing are indispensable, and the biggest problem of French cars is the lack of follow-up in technological innovation, and it can even be said that the technical strength of today's domestic cars must stabilize PSA.
Engine: Lack of high-end products
In terms of engines, the diesel engine of the French car is indeed very good, but many people use ford, Jaguar Land Rover are equipped with PSA engines to confirm that PSA's engine is not worthy of scrutiny, because it is PSA and Ford cooperation in development, Ford and ford once acquired Jaguar Land Rover is not surprising. In 1998, Ford and PSA Peugeot-Citroën collaborated to develop diesel engines. Unfortunately, PSA's diesel engine is not used on domestic models.
PSA in the domestic model equipped with three engines, is 1.2T, 1.6T, 1.8T three engines, of which the 1.6T engine is Peugeot and BMW cooperation development, the so-called PSA with chassis technology for engine technology is just a rumor, because this engine is PSA led the development, BMW played an auxiliary design, 1.8T engine is based on the 1.6T engine to expand the cylinder. This engine has won the Ward Top Ten engine many times, the turbine lag is low, the power is relatively linear, the fuel economy is also good, in the promotion of the national six B, the 1.8T engine introduced BMW's continuous stepless variable valve lift technology (valvetronic technology), the maximum power from 150KW to 155KW, peak torque from 280 Nm to 300 Nm.
Peugeot's 1.6T engine and 1.8T engine are indeed good engine products. But PSA has always lacked high-end gasoline engines, no 3.0T engines, not even 2.0T engines, and then look at other car brands, Volkswagen Nissan Toyota Honda Nissan, which brand does not have a large displacement engine? Great Wall, one of its own car brands, has also developed a 3.0T six-cylinder engine. What does the PSA take to fight?
Transmission: Blank
DPCA car before a 4AT gearbox, this 4AT gearbox believes that many old car owners are deeply affected, abnormal noise, gear shift delay, driving when there is a strong sense of frustration, high failure rate, can be said to be infamous.
In addition to this 4AT gearbox, all automatic transmissions of all models currently sold in China are purchased.
The 6-speed wet dual-clutch transmission, purchased from Getrag, 6AT and 8AT transmissions, purchased from Aisin, it can be said that PSA simply does not have an automatic transmission at hand. Looking at its own car brand, Geely Great Wall Chery BYD has its own dual-clutch transmission, and Great Wall has recently developed its own 9DCT and 9AT gearbox. What does PSA take?
Chassis: The torsion beam suspension is deified
Chassis technology may be the French car, the most able to get the technology out of hand, many people like to take the achievements of the French car in the WRC, to confirm the technical strength of the French car, but the problem is that the field of racing and civilian cars are completely two fields. The field of racing can be regardless of cost, durability, maintenance costs, many laboratory technologies can also be mounted on racing cars, and civilian vehicles are the real test of mass production technology.
Besides, the suspension technology used by PSA in the rally is not at all the torsion beam suspension blown into the sky by domestic fans, Citroen C4 for example, the suspension of the WRC C4 car adopts the front and rear McPherson-style independent suspension, and the front and rear suspensions are using coil springs, which are blown into a French car with invincible handling, why is the independent suspension used on the car?
The PHC adaptive hydraulic stabilization technology, which fans are talking about, is purchased from Japanese suppliers and is not PSA's self-developed technology at all.
And in the production car, the French car is deified by the plate suspension, in fact, the handling and comfort are not done well, Versailles C5 X elk test score of 80 km / h, but the track measured the best lap speed of 01: 29.25s, than the Asian Dragon, Artez, Camry, Mazda Arce Sera, hybrid Willanda worse, this handling performance can be said to be very crotch-
New energy vehicles: the pace is slow
In the field of new energy, the hybrid system of domestic automobiles is in full bloom, and the double motor series parallel hybrid system represented by BYD Great Wall Chery Geely, whether it is power, power loss, fuel consumption, smoothness, cost performance are very outstanding, pure electric models, whether it is AION LX PLUS with a range of more than 1000 kilometers, BYD Han with blade batteries, extreme kryptonian 001 with good product strength, Weilai ET7 equipped with semi-solid-state batteries, etc. Pure electric models of independent brands can be described as a hundred flowers.
Look at PSA, in the domestic mass production of pure electric models only one Peugeot e2008, or an oil to electric model, the guide price: 16.60-18.80 million, endurance of 360 kilometers, no competitiveness.
In terms of hybrid vehicles, Peugeot Citroen's plug-in hybrid model, the so-called three-engine hybrid technology, is actually a hybrid plug-in hybrid, in addition to the engine, 1 rear axle electric drive assembly is used to directly drive the rear axle, and 1 front electric motor is integrated with the ATN8 gearbox. From the perspective of technological advancement, it is obviously lagging behind the dual motor series parallel hybrid technology commonly used by independent brands, and the fuel consumption of feed is high.
At present, PSA's sales are mainly concentrated in Europe, and in 2020, PSA Group achieved sales of 1.71 million vehicles in Europe, a plunge of 30% compared with 2019, which was achieved in the case of the acquisition of Opel. In January last year, PSA Group and Fiat Chrysler Automobile Company officially merged, which is quite a bit of a group heating meaning, but PSA and FCA are half a beat slower in the electrification layout response, if they do not make efforts in new energy, I am afraid that they will only be shuffled out of the game.