Tavares Sketches Plan to Revamp PSA

Carlos Tavares, who will take over as CEO of PSA Peugeot Citroen at the end of March, says he will hike product development, shrink the company's model lineup and create low-cost vehicle platforms for local production in emerging markets.

Tavares concedes to reporters in Paris that fully transforming PSA may take 20 years.

Bloomberg News notes that PSA has continued to slide, in part because of a strategy of skimping on product development and focusing on mid-market models for the European market.

PSA is second only to Volkswagen in sales volume in Europe. A decade ago, the two companies were only 3.4 points apart in regional market share. Now the gap is 13.7 points, according to industry group ACEA. Over the same period, VW's global sales have nearly doubled, and PSA's have dropped nearly 15%.

Tavares says he will present a detailed "Back in the Race" revival plan for PSA in mid-April.