► CAR interviews Peugeot boss, Alain Favey
► It’s a case of innovate, or die
► Starts with Polygon and new e-208 GTI
Tough times in the car market call for innovation and bravery, not a retreat into caution. So says Alain Favey, Peugeot CEO. Within his first year in the job, he’s unveiled a striking new GTI-badged electric hatchback and a concept car with steer-by-wire tech that will go into production with the next-generation of the 208 and 2008.
Speaking exclusively to CAR, he said: ‘In this struggle to survive that everybody is sharing at the moment, the way out for a brand like Peugeot is being innovative. There is no future for a brand in Europe if it doesn’t keep innovating – because others will do it better or quicker.
‘If we continue to bring innovation that others don’t do, we’re really standing out from the crowd and you have a relevance for many years to come.’
For him that’s embodied in the Polygon concept car (which we’ve driven, below), with a ‘hypersquare’ steering wheel that uses software, not physical connections, to translate driver inputs to the front wheels. When it goes into production, it will be the first use of such technology in a mainstream car from a mass manufacturer. For Favey it’s the next step on from the i-Cockpit innovations of the last few years.
‘My job today is to design the Peugeots of the future. What is the future of Peugeot? How do I make sure Peugeots remain modern in a market that is changing as new products come in from everywhere all the time? We do that by making sure Peugeot remains modern, keeps standing out from the competition, and we do that by always reinventing the future.’
So how does the return of the GTI badge, due soon on an electric hot hatch based on the current-generation E-208, fit into that?
It’s not, insists Favey, retro thinking. ‘We are not trying to recreate glorious models of the past. But we can get from our past maybe some inspiration about how we make a successful future.
‘GTI is an opportunity to innovate – clearly we have never done an electric GTI in the past. At the same time it is bringing the GTI badge to a new level of fun, to a level we did not have when we had the last GTI.
‘I think we manage with new technology to bring the GTI feeling to another level with very modern solutions.’
He said that when the E-208 GTI was shown at Le Mans last summer, he was amazed by the youth and enthusiasm of the drivers who brought their classic 205 GTIs along for a parade lap; many were in their thirties, and deeply knowledgable about Peugeot’s heritage.
‘We are touching with the GTI a very young target group, one that is extremely demanding.’
As well as reaching new buyers, the GTI project was also energising Peugeot staff, he said. The same people were working on the GTI and the World Endurance Championship racers. ‘The 208 GTI is developed by the same people. In the morning they work on the Le Mans car, in the afternoon they work on the 208 GTI. We transfer know-how about how to set up suspension, the whole feeling in the car. It’s not a department of motorsport – it’s literally the same engineers.’
