How Citroen C5 Aircross SUV plans to bring down Hyundai, Jeep's India dominance

French carmaker Citroen announced its entry into the Indian auto industry exactly a year ago. It plans to come up with its first offering, the C5 Aircross SUV, by 2021. When launched, it will take on some of the big names in the SUV segment, like the Jeep Compass and Hyundai Tucson.

Citroen has confirmed that the C5 Aircross SUV will not be produced in India. In fact, it will come via the CKD route. However, the C Cubed products will be 'Made in India’ cars, targeting as much as 90 percent localisation.

While there is no confirmation yet whether the company will also bring in the plug-in hybrid version of the C5 Aircross, Citroen has assured it will come up with EV variant of every car it produces till 2025.

With the Citroen C5 Aircross SUV, plans to sell its cars by giving a new car buying and owning experience for Indians, powered by human-centered technology. The company has recently opened its first showroom in Ahmedabad. Citroen India’s dealer approach promises to be slightly different than its competitors. The company said that all these innovations will be India-first initiatives.

The initiatives will be combined with the ‘La Maison Citroen’, a concept it launched in France in 2017. The concept is present in over 100 locations worldwide, and is aimed at making the car buying experience quite engaging and digitally immersive. In India, the dealerships will adopt this new model as well as the ‘La Maison’ branding right from the outset.

La Maison, which means ‘home’ in French, uses wood and earthy tones accented by bright highlights to create a warm and inviting atmosphere. Since the company is new to India, Citroen has proposed relatively smaller, but digitalised showrooms.

The company will offer a highly interactive virtual system via which users can configure their cars at home and then carry on the configuration process in the showroom. The aim is to ensure outstanding customer experience, primarily driven by digital tools.

The ATAWADAC (Any Time, Any Where, Any Device, Any Content) is a unique seamless digital consumer experience created for India which will be taken to the world later. It will allow customers to seamlessly research products, select variants, configure options and accessories and transact for service contracts, finance and insurance. Customers will be able to save the configurations and pick it up right from where they left, at any of the showrooms. Even options to book test drives and even purchase a car would be completely online.

Check out Upcoming Cars in India 2024, Best SUVs in India.