A quick look at the Indian car sales figures of the past year is enough to inform even the most unintelligent reader that Citroën is barely hanging on by a thread. Last month, the French carmaker managed to move…wait for it…421 units in total. In comparison, heavyweights like Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai each clocked just over 50,000 units during the same period.
Okay, comparing Citroën to these brands may seem unfair. But even if we look at a brand like Kia that currently sells four models in India (after the Carnival getting de-listed from their website), much like Citroën, it sold just over 20,000 units last month. To put it into perspective, Citroën’s cumulative sales figure for February 2023-2024 stands at about 9,755 units – less than half of what Kia clocked in a month!
Amidst this worryingly low performance, Citroën has boldly previewed its next product for the Indian and South American markets, the Basalt Vision Concept. It previews the fourth model in the brand’s C-cubed program, after the C3, eC3, and the C3 Aircross, but in essence, it’s the C3 Aircross with a sloping, coupé-like roofline. The final product’s launch is expected in the latter half of 2024.
At this point, it’s pretty much pointless to discuss the visuals of the Basalt Vision Concept as quite a few significant bits, or rather, the bits that make the vehicle look funky and attractive, will most likely not make it onto the production model. Having said that, the silhouette resulting from the coupé treatment looks quite neat, and the overall design of the Basalt Vision looks much more cohesive than the near production-ready Tata Curvv we saw at the 2024 Bharat Mobility Expo. For the unaware, Curvv is Tata Motor’s contender in the same mid-size coupé-SUV segment. It will also be launched in India around the same time as the Vision Basalt-based coupé-SUV.
So, the big question here is this. Can the Basalt Vision help end Citroën’s woes in the Indian market? In simple words, not really. Given that it’s a derivative of the C3 Aircross, a product that failed to take off, it would be naive to expect the Vision Basalt to be a game-changer. At the most, Citroën could work on the product packaging and maybe throw in a few more bells and whistles to attract younger car buyers and perhaps adopt a better marketing approach for better success.
It’s not wrong to assume that there have been big lapses in Citroën’s understanding of the Indian market, and before anything else, this is what needs to be addressed, urgently. But will it be? If Citroën’s lucky, they will have enough time to tell.