With its combined financial strength and skills, the merged entity will be particularly well placed to provide innovative, clean and sustainable mobility solutions, both in a rapidly urbanizing environment and in rural areas around the world. The gains in efficiency derived from larger volumes, as well as the benefits of uniting the two companies’ strengths and core competencies, will ensure the combined business can offer all its customers best-in-class products, technologies and services and respond with increased agility to the shift taking place in this highly demanding sector.

The combined company will have annual unit sales of 8.7 million vehicles, with revenues of nearly €170 billion, recurring operating profit of over €11 billion and an operating profit margin of 6.6%, all on a simple aggregated basis of 2018 results. The strong combined balance sheet provides significant financial flexibility and ample headroom both to execute strategic plans and invest in new technologies throughout the cycle.

The combined entity will have a balanced and profitable global presence with a highly complementary and iconic brand portfolio covering all key vehicle segments from luxury, premium, and mainstream passenger cars through to SUVs and trucks & light commercial vehicles. This will be underpinned by FCA’s strength in North America and Latin America and Groupe PSA’s solid position in Europe. The new Group will have much greater geographic balance with 46% of revenues derived from Europe and 43% from North America, based on aggregated 2018 figures of each company. The combination will bring the opportunity for the new company to reshape the strategy in other regions.

The efficiencies that will be gained from optimizing investments in-vehicle platforms, engine families and new technologies while leveraging increased scale will enable the business to enhance its purchasing performance and create additional value for stakeholders. More than two-thirds of run-rate volumes will be concentrated on 2 platforms, with approximately 3 million cars per year on each of the small platform and the compact/mid-size platform.

Those synergies will enable the combined business to invest significantly in the technologies and services that will shape mobility in the future while meeting the challenging global CO₂ regulatory requirements. With an already strong global R&D footprint, the combined entity will have a robust platform to foster innovation and further drive the development of transformational capabilities in new energy vehicles, sustainable mobility, autonomous driving and connectivity.

Completion of the proposed combination is expected to take place in 12-15 months, subject to customary closing conditions, including approval by both companies’ shareholders at their respective Extraordinary General Meetings and the satisfaction of antitrust and other regulatory requirements.

The challenge is to integrate Groupe PSA’s technology into the Chinese ecosystem with special cases since the environment, infrastructure, map system and road users are different.

This OpenLab ensures the synergy of PRAIRIE Institute. The results of the fundamental research led by the Institute will stimulate research into topics that are applicable to the automotive industry.

The AI OpenLab adds to a global network of 18 existing facilities for Groupe PSA, with 12 in France, four in China, one in Brazil and one in Morocco. As research facilities, OpenLabs pool together teams and experimental resources from Groupe PSA and its partner laboratories, in line with Groupe PSA’s Open Innovation policy and its StelLab network, created in 2010 to encourage scientific discussion.

Source: Groupe PSA

Groupe PSA is offering its customers the chance to test V2X functions on several roads in France. People owning  DS 4 and Citroën C4 vehicles and driving them in Ile-de-France, Brittany, Isère, Champagne-Ardenne and Bordeaux can take part.

Data exchange involves “on-board units” – the car is fitted with a modem, two antennas and software – and “road-side units”, which are connected to traffic management centres.

The test is part of the SCOOP project, launched in 2014. SCOOP is a French pilot intelligent transport system that aims to enhance road safety and improve traffic management, making it a key step in autonomous and connected vehicle deployment. Indeed, V2X communication (like V2C, Vehicle-to-Car and V2I, Vehicle-to-Infrastructure) can help anticipate certain events. The information exchanged between the vehicles and the infrastructure will fill in the gaps in that obtained by the cameras and radars that will equip the autonomous vehicle.
Today, the project consists in testing V2X standards in real on-road conditions. More than 2,000 kilometres of French roads are being equipped; the current project’s perimeter covers 15 use cases. (See the table in the Appendix)

The design and validation procedures for SCOOP system are similar to those for a series-production vehicle; the existing interface already integrates the SCOOP alerts.
Information sharing is compliant with data protection rules and cybersecurity standards; the French Data Protection Authority (CNIL) has vetted the project.

SCOOP’s appeal is that it has established a common language between many stakeholders:
– Carmakers (Groupe PSA and Renault), which are involved in the project and are fitting the connected vehicles with the on-board units;
– Regional road infrastructure departments (Aquitaine, Ouest, Isère, Ile de France) and a motorway concession holder (Sanef), which are installing the road-side units;
– Several suppliers of vehicle and roadside systems, which are also contributing to the project;
– A telecom operator (Orange), which is ensuring the continuity of communication on the various networks;
– The French Ministry of Transport, which is coordinating the entire SCOOP project.

Groupe PSA is working on several avenues for the rollout of V2X communication, whether through the SCOOP project or as part of the C-V2X project launched recently in partnership with Qualcomm.

Source: Groupe PSA

HARMAN and Groupe PSA announced at the Geneva International Motor Show that the companies are working together to build a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy for Groupe PSA’s next-generation connected and autonomous vehicles platform. The announcement marks a two-year joint work relationship between the two companies, spanning across multiple projects–from analyzing potential threats, through security design, to a feasibility study of advanced Intrusion Detection Systems for ADAS, Autonomous and Next-Generation vehicle network architectures.

According to Yuval Weisglass, Vice President, HARMAN Automotive Cybersecurity, “To protect semi-autonomous and ADAS systems against various types of cyber threats, now is the time to adopt a security-by-design approach, developing unconventional detection and protection capabilities. We’re honored that Groupe PSA consistently selects HARMAN as its cybersecurity partner – a strong testament to HARMAN’s understanding of the intricate concerns and ultimate cybersecurity solutions required by the automotive industry.”

HARMAN SHIELD Solution, the Cybersecurity Analysis Center and the new technology preview to protect ADAS systems against cyber threats will be demonstrated during the Geneva Auto Show.

Source: HARMAN

At the In&Out Digital Mobility event in March in Rennes, Groupe PSA and Qualcomm will host the first demonstration in France. It will feature PSA’s cars enabled with C-V2X technology using the Qualcomm® 9150 C-V2X chipset and reference platform. Specific use-cases will demonstrate how C-V2X technology supports Advanced Driver Assistance capabilities. The demonstration will display how vehicles can seamlessly communicate with one another to alert each other of potential roadside hazards or distressed vehicle situations, such as slow moving or disable cars.

One of the objective of the trial is to test C-V2X technology, as the first step of 5G deployment for automotive applications with direct communication between vehicles. Since the trials’ announcement in February 2017, Groupe PSA and Qualcomm Technologies keep on working together to test C-V2X technology based on 3rd Generation Partnership Program’s (3GPP) over 5.9 GHz spectrum, allocated for ITS and network communications over commercial telecom operator spectrum.

C-V2X’s evolution will incorporate 5G New Radio (NR) features, which provide high throughput, ultra-low latency, high reliability and wideband carrier support for advanced use cases for autonomous driving, including high throughput sensor, intent sharing and 3D HD map updates.

To further support the global expansion of the C-V2X ecosystem, Groupe PSA recently joined the 5G Automotive Association (5GAA), a cross-industry organization. 5GAA supports C-V2X direct and network communications, which has grown to over 70 member global companies including automakers and their suppliers, mobile operators, semiconductor companies, test equipment vendors, telecom network suppliers, and ITS equipment and software suppliers.

Source: Groupe PSA