For several weeks now, Citroën has been in a state of flux as it prepares to unveil the future C3, the first production car to reflect the brand's new direction. Before that, Thierry Koskas, the new boss of the brand since February 2023, reaffirmed the positioning of the brand while admitting to wanting more simplicity.
In June, Citroën announced through its new CEO that it did not want to become a low-cost brand, but rather a popular brand, in the sense of being known and even appreciated by everyone and, above all, meeting everyone's mobility needs. For Thierry Koskas, popular does not mean cheap, but rather a brand that is close to the people, meets their needs and covers most market segments.
But Citroën also has other values, including comfort, which is the brand's strong totem and will remain so in the future. Sitting behind the wheel of a Citroën must provide a unique feeling of absolute comfort, and the brand intends to continue along this path in the future, relying on electric power to maximise this feeling thanks to the smoothness of this type of engine and the absence of noise or vibration, which makes Citroëns even more comfortable.
Electricity is another point on which the brand is insisting, as it is fully committed to this path and, while it has a wide range of electric models from the Ami to the C5 X, it is counting on the future C3 and C3 Aircross to benefit from the growth of this market segment. By 2024, the entire Citroën range will offer an electric or hybrid version, allowing consumers to benefit from more virtuous and environmentally friendly engines.
Thierry Koskas points out that electricity is not the only way to be sustainable, and the brand intends to commit to the massive use of recycled and recyclable materials, as demonstrated by the oli concept, which aims to offer an affordable and sustainable electric mobility solution as a manifesto for the brand's future models. However, Citroën is keeping an eye on other technical solutions, including synthetic fuels called eFuel, for which, according to the brand boss, "For the moment, we think that these synthetic fuels will serve a niche such as sports or luxury cars, because the price is very high. But if we see that we can use them on a larger scale, Citroën will be ready".
Popular, durable, electric, comfortable, the contours of future Citroëns are taking shape, but the brand wants to emphasise simplicity. To this end, it has already started to reduce the number of trim levels from five to three and the number of options to a maximum of 5 per trim level. The aim is to simplify production and display net prices, as Thierry Koskas wants to bring the list price closer to the real price paid by customers who, with discounts, no longer know exactly what their car is worth. I will not hide from you the fact that, in addition to these initial decisions, my ambition is to move towards even greater simplification," he said, without specifying what that might be.
With less than a month to go before the launch of the new C3, Citroën is continuing to clarify its future, which it clearly intends to be electric without closing the door to other technologies, sustainable in particular through the use of recycled materials, while maintaining the brand's specific values: comfort and daring, as it has demonstrated in recent years with the Ami. In this respect, the next generation of the C3 is of crucial importance because, in addition to being a bestseller, it will have to deliver Citroën's new promise to consumers.
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