On his first visit to India, Carlos Tavares, Global CEO, Stellantis spoke to Autocar Professional about how the Amsterdam-based company's frugal approach is paying off in India and how the environmental benefits of electric vehicles hinge on their affordability.
You've got the Citroen C5 SUV that is a niche model and the smaller C3. Are you really happy with the volumes from these models?
That's a very fair question. As you know, at Stellantis, we do not push the network because we see that pushing the network is one kind of a bad instruction. I would like to tell you what I'm happy with, so that we can take this from the positive side. I'm very happy with the car itself, the C3. I think it's a very nice looking, modern, fresh, trendy and well-engineered car. So, I'm happy with the product.
We can wait some quarters more to secure development of the product. So yes, we can always take more time, we are not chasing volumes, we are trying to do the right things in the right way.
We want to understand what your strategy was because quite honestly, it's not even making a blip in the market, given the segments that it's competing in.
We are where we should be with the products. The performance is very good, handles well, they are agile, very modern and reasonably roomy. We have given the market a product, which I think is not a product that has been thought in isolation or disconnected from the Indian market requirements.
We have to remember the importance of quality. Today, we were looking at a couple of small issues that we have on the pre-production models that we could fix. We visited the assembly line and I was looking at the fit and finish of the car, and as you know, I'm quite picky and quite demanding. And I think the car has been properly made.
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