PSA Peugeot Citroen to focus on ‘real-world’ fuel figures of diesel, petrol engines
French carmaker PSA Peugeot Citroen has announced this week that it will move to publish ‘real-world’ fuel economy and emissions figures of its petrol and diesel models, verified by an independent organisation.
The initiative comes as a direct response to the controversy surrounding the ‘defeat device’ used by Volkswagen to cheat emissions testing of its EA189 diesel engine, although PSA avoided mentioning the German company by name.
“In light of the current media coverage on emissions and diesel, which impacts the entire automotive industry, PSA Peugeot Citroën would like to give better information to its customers, investors and other stakeholders,” the carmaker, Europe’s second-largest, said in a statement today.
The company also offered assurance that its vehicles “have never been fitted” with any software or technology designed to fool tests.
"The Group [PSA] stresses that its vehicles are compliant and that 4300 vehicles were selected at random off its production lines in 2014 to verify compliance with type approval," the company said.
Speaking with press today, PSA Chief Financial Officer Jean-Baptiste de Chatillon said that Peugeot Citroen has long been a leader in clean diesel technology, introducing particulate filters long before they were made mandatory, while also extending its BlueHDi exhaust treatment system across all of its models compliant with current Euro 6 emissions regulations.
De Chatillon freely admitted that deciding on and announcing this move toward greater transparency and a more realistic measure of fuel consumption is intended not only to calm concerned owners, but also to win favour and attract new buyers.
"We know that we have a favorable positioning and we want to exploit this favorable positioning by letting people know about it,” Chief Financial Officer Jean-Baptiste de Chatillon told reporters during a conference call.
The company will aim to publish real-world consumption and emissions figures for its Peugeot, Citroen and DS models around March next year, although it is still working through the specifics of how this new measure will be carried out.
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