Double-chevron limo heading for production, but European sales uncertain
Citroen's massive Metropolis luxo-barge concept is headed for production and will become the luxury range-topper for Citroen's new DS sub-brand, most likely badged DS9.
The Metropolis/DS9 - which is the first product of Citroen's Chinese design studio based in Shanghai - was revealed at the Shanghai Expo in May, and a production version would almost certainly be aimed at the lucrative Chinese market, says industry mag Automotive News.
Citroen has a strong presence in China, and Chinese buyers don't have the same hang-ups and perceptions about luxury automotive products as Western buyers. Thus, a 5.3-metre Audi A8 rival could quite easily carry off a Citroen badge.
The DS9 is likely to be built on a modified version of the platform that underpins the Citroen C6 and would almost inevitably be powered by a V6 coupled to an electric motor and a dual-clutch gearbox, at least in its top-end forms.
Whether the DS9 would find its way to European markets, where Citroen luxury cars are hardly big sellers - only a few hundred C6s have found their way onto UK driveways in half a decade on sale - is another question entirely. But it might at least persuade M Sarkozy out of his Vel Satis...
I like it - I like any big french car as it's good to know that there's a car company bonkers enough to build it - Probably at their own taxpayers' expense though....
I bet it looks nothing like that when it's built though.
[quote=CITROEN METROPOLIS COULD BECOME DS9 RANGE-TOPPER ]Citroen has a strong presence in China, and Chinese buyers don't have the same hang-ups and perceptions about luxury automotive products as Western buyers. Thus, a 5.3-metre Audi A8 rival could quite easily carry off a Citroen badge. [/quote]
The Chinese do have hang ups and perception on brands, they really love the designer labels and see Citreon as unreliable.
Allot of them are materialistic and like big labels, and go for BMW, MB just for the badge but not as bad as the people who will go for the boggo version as they also like the cars to be able aswell and don't like showing that they can only afford the base version and normally avoid diesals.
Just look at the UK most Chinese who have a few pennies drive main BMW and MB.
China is currently doing its best to corner the EV and hybrid market by cutting back on the export of the rare earth materials needed to manufacture the high efficiency motors. Their aim is to force Western manufacturers out of business and build everything in China.
China is currently doing its best to corner the EV and hybrid market by cutting back on the export of the rare earth materials needed to manufacture the high efficiency motors. Their aim is to force Western manufacturers out of business and build everything in China.
Really?
Are those "rare earth" elements not available anywhere else?
China is currently doing its best to corner the EV and hybrid market by cutting back on the export of the rare earth materials needed to manufacture the high efficiency motors. Their aim is to force Western manufacturers out of business and build everything in China.
Really?
Are those "rare earth" elements not available anywhere else?
(Genuine question by the way)
there was a very interesting telegraph piece about rare earth metals a while ago- Australia and the US used to produce about 30% (or something like that- my memory of the figures is not very good)- but they all closed down a couple of decades ago as the stuff coming out of Chin was so cheap, and now about 99% of all rare earth materials are produced by China!
