French automaker conglomerate PSA Groupe intends to start selling cars again in the United States by 2026. It opened continental headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia in January, and it revealed Tuesday 14 of 15 states it is eyeing as the most promising markets, as well as four Canadian provinces.
- Arizona
- California
- Florida
- Georgia
- Illinois
- Maryland
- Massachusetts
- New Hampshire
- New Jersey
- New York
- North Carolina
- Rhode Island
- Texas
- Virginia
- Washington
“Those states are of the most interest to me at this point in time because they’re high-volume and import receptive,” stated PSA North America’s CEO Larry Dominique, as reported by Automotive News. Rhode Island was not disclosed by Dominique to Automotive News and was instead shared with The Drive via email. Dominique also pointed out the company’s intended Canadian drop zones: Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, and of course, Quebec.
The brand with which PSA Groupe will return to the states (it owns Peugeot, Citroën, DS, Opel, and Vauxhall) has not yet been determined, and the company’s decision is not expected until 2019.
PSA Groupe is at present utilizing its mobility aggregator app ‘Free2Move’ to dig a financial foothold into the dirt of North America. The service has proved successful enough in its U.S. pilot market of Seattle, Washington that the company plans to expand its availability to new areas of the country. We speculate its regional home of Atlanta could be on the shortlist, but PSA has not yet returned comment on this prospect.
“It is important to understand our Free2Move application is a globally operational app,” stated Dominique in an email to The Drive. “If you download it, it works anywhere we have global mobility partners.”
“We will be actively marketing our application in three cities this year, two in the U.S. and one in Canada,” the PSA exec concluded. “We will announce the city names soon. F2M is the first leg of our three-phase plan to re-enter North America.”