PSA Peugeot Citroen drops engine plans; switches to electric cars

The PSA Peugeot Citroen plant in Trnava may launch the production of electric cars towards the end of 2019 or in 2020 at the latest, according to a news item printed in the Hospodárske Noviny daily on Tuesday. While the Trnava plant saw production breaks due to low demand three years ago, with the local trade union even agreeing to a two-year freezing of salaries at the time, the situation has changed in the past two years under PSA central CEO Carlos Tavares, who has decided to focus on the production of small city cars from the B-segment. While PSA in Trnava intended to build a new engine production facility, it's swapped the plan for producing electric cars instead. The situation may well be due to PSA's Chinese stakeholder Dongfeng Motor Corporation and also the fact that electric motors require only one third of the number of components used for internal-combustion engines, added the daily.