PSA to build Toyota vans

Toyota-badged Peugeot and Fiat vans won’t replace the HiAce in Australia any time soon.

That’s the word from Toyota Australia following a deal that will see Peugeot’s Expert, Fiat’s Scudo and Citroen’s Jumpy (not sold here) wear Toyota badges in Europe by mid-2013.

The beleaguered PSA Peugeot Citroen, France’s largest car-maker and Europe’s second-biggest after Volkswagen, earlier this month announced plans to close its historic Aulnay plant north of Paris, axing up to 8000 jobs following falling sales and a plummeting share price as VW squeezes its market share.

Now PSA has announced an arrangement with Toyota, which discontinued its short-wheelbase HiAce SBV (pictured) earlier this year after it proved uncompetitive against VW’s Transporter and the Ford Transit. The French company will build rebadged versions of its mid-size commercial vans for the Japanese brand in Europe for at least the next decade.

Toyota’s larger HiAce LWB and SLWB models will continue on sale in Australia, where the Scudo and Expert will also remain available.

But in Europe, where the discontinued SBV was the only HiAce available, PSA will produce a fourth derivate of the Expert, Jumpy and Scudo for Toyota until 2017, when the joint-venture light commercial arrangement between PSA and Fiat ends, “due to diverging product strategies”, said the companies in May 2011.

As part of the PSA-Toyota deal, which does not involve plans to enter into capital tie-ups or shared production, the French and Japanese companies will co-develop a next-generation mid-size van, which will carry Peugeot, Citroen and Toyota through to beyond 2025.

All three vans could be produced at the Sevel Nord factory in Lieu Saint-Amand, France, which is currently operated under a joint venture with Fiat Group as part of the LCV deal that expires in 2017, after PSA agreed to buy Fiat's stake in Sevel Nord by the end of this year.

However, in a complicated patchwork of cross-pollination in Europe’s commercial vehicle industry, Fiat and PSA have extended to 2019 their agreement to produce a joint-venture large commercial vehicle in Italy, meaning the next-generation Fiat Ducato, Peugeot Boxer and Citroen Jumper vans will again be mechanically identical.

Meantime, while Holden’s old but still popular Combo compact van could be replaced by Opel’s new-generation Fiat Doblo-based Combo, separate joint-ventures between GM and Renault-Nissan see the Renault Trafic badged as the Opel Vivaro and Nissan Primastar, and the Renault Master/Nissan NV400 badged as the Opel Movano.

“The light commercial vehicle segment is an important one for us in many markets throughout Europe,” said Toyota Motor Europe President and CEO Didier Leroy. “By joining forces with PSA Peugeot Citroën, we have found a good solution for our loyal customers following the recent discontinuation of our own HiAce model.”

Of course, this is not the first PSA-Toyota vehicle partnership, with the pint-size Toyota Aygo, Peugeot 107 and Citroen C1 triplets built in the same Czech factory for European markets.

Earlier this year PSA also announced a platform-sharing and global purchasing joint-venture with GM and its struggling European division, and the French company also has partnerships with Mitsubishi, which builds two i-MiEV-based models — the Peugeot iOn and the Citroen C-Zero — plus the Outlander-based Peugeot 4007 and Citroen C-Crosser (not sold here). Most recently Mitsubishi has commenced building the ASX-based Peugeot 4008 and Citroen C4 Aircross in Japan.

For its part, Toyota recently also announced a joint-venture sportscar with BMW, whose MINI brand is in turn supplied with engines from PSA and who will also supply Toyota with diesel engines in return for collaboration on future hybrid and battery technologies.

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