No New PSE Models On The Horizon, Says Peugeot Boss

The Peugeot 508 PSE is one of the more esoteric, rare-groove performance cars out there at the moment. When we drove it, we came away deeply charmed by it, despite a few flaws. It stands out in Peugeot’s current range as its only performance offering and, according to the company’s CEO, Linda Jackson, it’ll likely stay that way for a while.

Car Throttle joined Jackson for a roundtable interview at the 6 Hours of Imola, the second round of this year’s World Endurance Championship, where Peugeot’s newly updated 9X8 LMH racer was making its competitive debut. While most brands competing there are either out-and-out performance manufacturers, like Lamborghini and Ferrari, or produce a range of performance cars, like BMW and Toyota, Peugeot remains an outlier, with the 508 PSE its only explicit road-going link to the WEC programme.

“We thought about it,” said Jackson when asked if there had been any plans for other PSE-badged cars to sit alongside the 508, which originally launched in 2020. “But the prioritisation came into play, and this was all about electrification… By the end of this year, every [Peugeot] model will have an electric version, and you have to make these priorities.”

Several of Peugeot’s smaller electric models, like the 208, are based on Stellantis’ e-CMP platform. A number of performance-biased EVs will soon launch on the same underpinnings, most notably the Abarth 600e, Alfa Romeo Junior Veloce and Lancia Ypsilon HF, all of which share the setup of 237bhp and a mechanical limited-slip diff. Jackson said that “there’s nothing certain” with regard to a future hot Peugeot EV using the same platform, but didn’t rule it out entirely.

Despite Jackson openly stating that Peugeot is not a performance brand, she’s adamant that it remains committed to its WEC programme. “[Motorsport] is two things for me,” she said. “It’s a brilliant vector for talking about Peugeot around the world… and it’s a little bit like a laboratory — you can test things, even down to design. We can develop suspension, hybridisation, aerodynamics.”

She went on to say the company is “debating” the need for a future road car to link directly to the WEC programme once the current 508 reaches the end of its life: “Do we need that, or do we need more to take the technology and be able to put it on a wider range of cars?” The 508 PSE should be around for a few years at least, as it’s only just undergone a mid-life facelift.

Jackson raised a tiny amount of hope for another performance Peugeot road car last year when she told Top Gear that, theoretically, if someone approached Peugeot with a blank cheque, it could build them a roadgoing version of the 9X8 racer. Unsurprisingly, though, Jackson says “we didn’t get anybody” taking the company up on the offer.

We shouldn’t hold our breaths, then, for any hot hatches or other performance cars from Peugeot in the short term, and if they do ever emerge, they’ll almost certainly be fully electric. As we recently found out, though, even some of the brand’s ‘regular’ cars are still very capable of raising a smile.