Plug-in hybrid DS 7 Crossback E-Tense is the first car in the brand's product offensive, with plans for 33% of total sales to be electrified by 2025
15 Jun 2017 | 6500 Views | By Jimi Beckwith, Autocar UK
DS will launch one model a year until at least 2023, with a target of 33% of sales to be hybrids or electric vehicles by the middle of the next decade.
Each of the six confirmed models will have an electrified version, which the brand claims will benefit from its ...
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DS will launch one model a year until at least 2023, with a target of 33% of sales to be hybrids or electric vehicles by the middle of the next decade.
Each of the six confirmed models will have an electrified version, which the brand claims will benefit from its EV know-how honed in its involvement in the Formula E championship.
The first of these is the recently revealed DS 7 Crossback - the brand’s answer to the BMW X3 - which will get an E-Tense petrol-electric plug-in hybrid variant with 296bhp and an electric-only range of 60 miles. The E-Tense will get an eight-speed automatic 'box, and will be available from spring 2019.
There’s no cap on where the brand’s one-model-per-year strategy will end, but six models are planned at the moment. More will come later.
The six confirmed launches will be a mixture of all-new market entries for the brand, as well as replacements for existing models. Some of these will be indirect replacements, explained a DS spokesman, where the model name would be carried over, but the car would be different to its predecessor, and wouldn’t necessarily occupy the same market.
Despite the high power output of the DS 7 Crossback E-Tense and subsequent plug-in hybrid models, the DS Performance badge will not be discontinued; the two will coexist. It’s not yet known if the Performance badge will spread to larger models than the brand’s entry-level DS 3, though.
The use of the E-Tense name for variants on more mass-market friendly models somewhat undermines the possibility of an E-Tense supercar under the brand; the spokesman said that such a model is not a priority, but didn’t rule out the now more distant possibility of a halo car in the future.