Stellantis South Africa will be in Cape Town supporting SA Auto Week in October this year, as the vitally important automotive summit returns to the Mother City.
Organised every year by naamsa | the Automotive Business Council, SA Auto Week brings industry thought leaders together from across the country, the continent, and the globe to discuss mutual automotive issues, discover development trends, and explore ways of working more efficiently and effectively.
“This year’s Auto Week is particularly significant, because 2024 is the centenary of the South African automotive industry,” says Stellantis South Africa managing director Mike Whitfield who is also a past president of naamsa.
The theme of this year’s gathering is “Reimagining the Future, TOGETHER: Celebrating Automotive Heritage, Passion and Ingenuity.”
It is important for Stellantis to be part of SA Auto Week, because the company is about to become the eighth manufacturing OEM in South Africa after it breaks ground on its state-of-the-art automotive plant in the Coega Special Economic Zone in the Eastern Cape. In addition, some of the eight brands that it has in South Africa are among the first to have been sold in this country.
“Stellantis is the proud custodian of iconic automotive brands, many of which are more than 100 years old, like Opel (est 1862), Peugeot (1889), FIAT (1899) and Citroën (1919). In fact, the Citroën B10, the Peugeot 5CV and Type 177 and FIAT 509 all celebrate their centenary this year too.”
Legacy is one thing, said Whitfield, but Stellantis – which was only formed through the amalgamation of FCA and PSA in January 2021 – is also about innovation.
“We are not just automotive leaders, we are determined to transform the concept of mobility across the world, which is why taking part in the kind of debates that will take place at SA Auto Week is so important. We have a lot to share with the industry and there is much for us to learn, too as we pivot up from South Africa into Africa.”
One of Stellantis’s key strategies is its Dare Forward 2030 plan that aims to produce a million units a year, with 70% localisation and achieve 22% market share in Middle East and Africa by 2030.
The R3-billion Greenfields site at Coega, which will produce the PEUGEOT Landtrek 1-ton pickup is a critical part of this plan, in tandem with the existing Stellantis manufacturing operations in North Africa: in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt.
The Coega plant is expected to directly employ 1 000 people and have an initial production target of 50 000 vehicles per year, when it becomes operational, with a capacity to scale production to 90 000 vehicles per year.
“This investment by Stellantis is testament to the ongoing public private partnership that has made the South African automotive sector the continental success it has been for decades and is due to the enabling environment that government and agencies like the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition, the Industrial Development Corporation, and the Coega Development Corporation have created.
“Investment in the automotive industry is a long-term process and there can be no investment of any nature without a legislative environment that ensures the playing fields are levelled, the interests of investors are protected, and a roadmap that guides all stakeholders,” he said. “It’s important to reflect this as we celebrate the centenary of this country’s motor industry at SA Auto Week in October.”