The future of brands like Jeep and Peugeot could be saved thanks to the surging popularity and strength of the Chinese car industry.
In a sign of just how dramatically the automotive landscape has changed in the last decade, Jeep and Peugeot’s parent company, Stellantis, is looking to China to help secure its long-term future.
In historic terms, Stellantis is an automotive juggernaut, comprising more than 14 European and US brands including those previously mentioned plus Alfa Romeo, Citroen, Dodge, Fiat, Opel, Maserati and more.
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But with pressure mounting on all of the so-called “legacy brands” (the traditional European, US, Japanese and Korean car makers) Stellantis has turned to partnerships with Leapmotor and Dongfeng, two rising Chinese manufacturers, to ensure it is positioned to survive long into the future.
This will likely have a direct impact on Australian buyers, with early reports indicating that Jeep Australia is looking to secure the upcoming Dongfeng-built Jeep models.
It could allow the brand to rebuild its shattered image in Australia, which has seen its sales plummet and its line-up shrink.
At the same time, Stellantis has already confirmed that Dongfeng will build new Peugeot models in China, potentially allowing the brand to compete more competitively in the Australian market in the future.
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Peugeot is currently not selling cars in Australia as it has cut ties with its current distributor, but the brand has indicated it has a future in Australia, potentially under the Stellantis banner.
This would be a much-needed boost for Stellantis Australia.
In the first eight months of the year across all of its brands it has only managed to sell 2910 vehicles, with none of its brands even able to crack the top 30 bestsellers in the country.
By comparison, China’s BYD, GWM, Chery and MG are all firmly ensconced inside the top 10 selling brands and Geely, Omoda-Jaecoo, Zeekr, LDV and Denza are all outselling Stellantis’ collective.
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A Stellantis Australia spokesperson wouldn’t confirm any specific plans for Dongfeng-built models in the local market, but left the door open for this to change.
“The agreement announced by Stellantis and Dongfeng in May strengthens a long-standing global partnership and supports the development and production of future Peugeot and Jeep vehicles for China and other markets,” the spokesperson said.
“We look forward to sharing additional details for Australia at the appropriate time.”
According to Francesco Giacalone, Leapmotor International Head of Product and Marketing, it won’t be as simple as Leapmotor and Dongfeng simply slapping a new ‘Jeep’ or ‘Peugeot’ badge on a Chinese-market vehicle. Giacalone said there will be learnings from both sides of the partnership and knowledge shared from China to Europe and vice versa.
“ For what concern Leapmotor, what we are seeing is that there are, in this moment, more and more interactions in terms of vehicle customisation,” he said. “So there are Stellantis teams of chassis, dynamic performance [engineers] that are constantly visiting Leapmotor to help to improve the Leapmotor products for the overseas markets. So in this way, they are as a Stellantis team acquiring experience about how Leapmotor develop the products and in concrete terms, helping Leapmotor to be more efficient and fit to the customer in overseas markets. At the same time, they are learning component by component what can be picked from Leapmotor as let’s say low-hanging fruits or a bit more complex to integrate in the Stellantis architecture.”
Giacalone even opened the door to Leapmotor and Stellantis developing cars with the Australian market primarily in mind, such as large SUVs or even a ute.
“I mean, I don’t want to say too many things, but this morning we had a very, very interesting conversation about Australia and what we, as Leapmotor, can do to create products that fit that market and for which maybe another market there is no demand, and you can guess what type of products they are,” he said.
When pushed for more details, Giacalone admitted a Leapmotor ute is under consideration, primarily with the Australian and South American markets in mind. However, he stopped short of confirming any plans, admitting that it would be difficult even for the biggest Chinese brands to build a ute just for Australia due to our relatively small market.
This might be further proof Stellantis is back on the right track after a horror 2025 financial year in which they suffered a massive $37bn net loss.
For the first half of this year, the company has reported a net profit of around $1bn.
