The French car-maker is clearly chasing some sales justice for the 2008 after barely registering on the 2016 new-car data.
This is Europe’s fastest selling compact SUV and is second in its market to the Renault Captur.
But in Australia, buyer reaction is not as strong.
Sales of the 2008 in 2016 were a modest 359 units, up on 2015 by 14 per cent but still one-quarter of the sales of the Renault Captur SUV and under one-half of the slow-selling Jeep Patriot.
Peugeot Australia general manager, Kai Bruesewitz, said the new SUV deserves better. As the first of three new SUVs to be launched by Peugeot this year – the 3008 and larger 5008 arrive before July – the first move was to reduce existing stock levels of the old model.
“We had to ensure the stock on the ground did not affect the future models, so we cleared the previous stock by 60 per cent,” he said.
“We introduced an eight-year warranty on the outgoing models as an incentive.
“Now we are lean and ready to launch new models.”
The second move was to rationalise the range. The previous 2008 had two petrol engines and one diesel engine, manual and automatic transmissions, and three trim levels.
Now there is one turbo-petrol engine, one automatic transmission and two trim levels – though a third will join in March – and despite increased equipment, prices for the Allure model remains the same and only the entry-level Active gains a price rise of $1000.
“We had a poor uptake on diesel so it was dropped from the range,” he said.
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The 2008 is presented as an SUV but there is no all-wheel drive available. The same philosophy will be carried over to the 3008 and 5008 which are also front-drive only.
Will buyers of an SUV want all-wheel drive? Mr Bruesewitz doesn’t believe so.
“We have Grip Control (a five-mode traction control driver-select system) on the Allure and GT-Line models and we believe that feature will cater for 90 per cent of buyer needs,” he said.
“It’s not four-wheel drive but it allows traction in areas away from bitumen. I don’t think it will be an issue for buyers in this segment.”
Pricing is now $26,490 plus on-road costs for the Active automatic that claims $2000 more equipment despite gaining only $1000 in price; and $30,990 for the more spec-rich Allure, also up $2000 in equipment but without any price rise.
The GT-Line will be the flagship model when it arrives in late March. It will cost $32,990 and adds red-coloured body highlights and sports pedals.
The third move by Peugeot Australia was to introduce a five-year warranty (three years is standard) to the new car until April. However, Mr Bruesewitz said he would consider making the five-year warranty a standard feature.
He indicated that the eight-year warranty – which would be Australia’s best – applied only to the outgoing models last year. Though it was successful in helping move stock and was included in discussions with PSA in France for future models, he was dubious about it making it to the market.
Volume expectations are high although Mr Bruesewitz won’t talk numbers.
“We certainly don’t want to go backwards and so we have aspirations,” he said.
“We were selling 50-60 a month and we can expect more with the new model, especially with an increase in metropolitan areas.
Peugeot 2008
“We also plan a strong advertising and marketing campaign.”
Mr Bruesewitz said there was a fine line between being a successful brand and how that is measured.
“We don’t want to become a mass-market brand,” he said.
“But at the same time we want to increase sales so we have to be open about marketing the products.
“It is important that we adjust our message to (head office) Paris to suit the needs of the Australian market.
“This can be from specifying what equipment we have in our cars to marketing the brand in events such as our support of the French film festival.”
By Neil Dowling
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