PSA Peugeot-Citroën has announced that it will build an upcoming light commercial vehicle (LCV) at its Mangualde (Portugal) site. According to a statement released by the automaker, the vehicle will be the same B-segment LCV that is earmarked for its site in Vigo (Spain). Production is set to begin at Mangualde during 2018. Yann Vincent, executive vice-president of Supply Chain & Manufacturing, said on the announcement, "Thanks to the efforts and discipline of the employees at Mangualde, who have successfully met the group's business requirements, I'm pleased to announce today that the module has been assigned to this location. The additional volumes will enable the plant to move towards our objective of achieving 115% capacity utilisation by 2022, as set out in our Back in the Race plan."
Significance: The site is currently home to the Peugeot Partner and Citroën Berlingo, with production having hit 53,500 units during 2014, and also having maintained an average output during the past five years of over 50,000 units per annum (upa). The announcement confirms that the current generation will be replaced here by a similar vehicle which has been given the project code, K9. IHS Automotive anticipates that its introduction will benefit from a increase in production levels, with the average output in the five years after its launch set to hit over 65,000 upa. In the intervening period, PSA will undertake some changes to the facility under PSA's "Excellent Plant" programme which has already started and intended to integrate the EMP2 platform at the site which will underpin this vehicle.
