Lancia's revival plan focuses on electrification, design, expansion outside Italy

TURIN -- Lancia plans to launch up to three new models in the next five years, as Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares seeks to give the storied Italian brand a chance for long-term survival through a focus on design, electrification and an expansion beyond its sole current market, Italy, where it has been reduced to a single model since 2017.

Early this year, Tavares quietly entrusted his longtime chief design lieutenant, Jean-Pierre Ploue, with the critical task of quickly designing a new range of Lancia models.

According to people involved on these projects but not authorized to speak publicly, Ploue has been assigned to design a small car, a compact crossover and a compact hatchback.

Work has already begun on the new Lancia models. 

Ploue, who was named one of two global chief design officers at the 14-brand Stellantis group in January, makes frequent trips to the former Fiat Chrysler Automobiles styling center in Turin, where he also supervises the design of Abarth, Alfa Romeo and Fiat. He was formally given responsibility for Lancia design on June 15.   

The small car, which would replace Lancia’s only current model, the Ypsilon, will appear first, in mid-2024, and will be the first full-electric offering in the company’s 115-year history. There will also be a gasoline variant.

The second model, a compact crossover, is set to appear in the first quarter of 2026 and will have only battery power.

While the small hatchback and the compact crossover projects were formally approved for development in mid-May, the compact hatchback has not yet received formal approval, according to people involved in the projects. Lancia is still evaluating if there will be sufficient volumes for a hatchback that would reach the market by late 2027.

A Stellantis spokesman declined to comment.

Ploue, 58, who started his career at Renault in 1985, “will personally supervise” the creation of Lancia’s new products along with a “lean and focused team” of young designers based in Turin, Stellantis said in a release.
 
He joined PSA Group in 1999 after a decade at Renault where he contributed to the designs of the first generations of the Twingo and Megane, and stints at Volkswagen and Ford of Europe.

At PSA, he was first given the task of leading the rebirth of a historic brand through design. As styling chief at Citroen, he led a transformation of the brand’s image through boldly styled models that included the C4, C5, C6 and DS3. Ploue was promoted to director of design at PSA in 2009. 

Reviving Lancia “is a truly exciting challenge,” Ploue said in a release, promising to restore the brand “to its central historical position in Europe, leveraging on its huge potential.’’

Lancia has been suffering for years from a lack of new product and investment. An attempt to expand its range following Fiat’s 2011 takeover of Chrysler by rebadging Chrysler products as Lancias failed badly.

The Chrysler 300 large sedan was offered in Europe as the Lancia Thema, and the midsize Chrysler 200 sedan and cabriolet rebadged as the Fulvia. The Chrysler Town & Country large minivan was imported in Europe as the Lancia Voyager. The models sold in low numbers and were quickly discontinued.

Fiat Chrysler's late CEO Sergio Marchionne made the decision in 2014 to limit Lancia to Italy amid the brand's declining European sales.

The Ypsilon, a premium minicar based on the Fiat Panda, has a decade-old design, but continues to sell relatively well in Italy. Through May, sales stood at 22,783 – or more than twice the sales of the overall Alfa Romeo range in Europe, according to trade group ACEA. It ranked third in the entry premium segment in 2020, according to JATO Dynamics, with more than 43,000 sales, trailing the Mini and the Audi A1.

Lancia’s future has been in doubt since the merger of PSA and FCA was announced in December 2019, but Tavares and Stellantis Chairman John Elkann have said they want to revive the brand. Tavares has grouped Lancia with fellow premium brands Alfa Romeo and DS Automobiles to create synergies though shared development costs.

Speaking to financial analysts in March, Tavares said Lancia embodies “Italian elegance” and that it has great potential to succeed not only Italy but also in “and neighboring countries.” 

Elkann said in March in an interview on Italian television that Alfa and Lancia could benefit from the Stellantis merger because for years FCA “could not invest or give resources as much as we wanted.”

Some of those resources will come from being part of Stellantis’ premium group.

In a recent interview with Automotive News Europe, DS Automobiles CEO Beatrice Foucher said that since Day 1 of the merger, she had been working together with Lancia and Alfa to find common ground.

“It's been amazing, because everyone has something they can get from the others and from the group,” she said. “Lancia is an amazing automotive story, but they have only one model today, which means they have to grow and rejuvenate to become what they were before.”

The first new Lancia model, the Ypsilon replacement, will benefit from technology that PSA brought to the merger that created Stellantis. It will be based on the second generation of the eCMP architecture that will debut late in 2022, according to a presentation given by Tavares in mid-April.

A compact crossover to debut in early 2026 will be an electric-only model based on the Stellantis STLA Medium architecture, previously known at PSA as the e-VMP architecture.

Italian metalworker unions suggest that the Lancia crossover could be the fourth model to be produced in the revamped Melfi plant in central Italy.

At a June 15 meeting in Rome with the deputy chief of Stellantis’ Enlarged Europe region, David Mele, and the Italian industrial minister, Giancarlo Giorgetti, unions were told that Stellantis would install the STLA Medium architecture in Melfi by mid-2024 and that it would underpin four models for different brands that “have relevance for the domestic market.” Melfi currently builds the Jeep Renegade and Compass and the Fiat 500X.

According to unions, Stellantis has not decided yet where to produce the Ypsilon replacement, with the plant at Tychy, Poland, as the most likely location.