Stellantis will invest €900 million (US$1.05 billion) in France to support the production of three new Peugeot electric and hybrid models at its Mulhouse facility beginning in 2029, reinforcing the automaker’s manufacturing strategy as it accelerates development of a new vehicle platform designed to improve competitiveness in the European market.
The investment includes €400 million (US$466 million) for the Mulhouse plant in eastern France and an additional €500 million dedicated to research and development activities. The majority of the R&D spending will support the STLA One platform, a core element of Stellantis’ recently announced five-year growth strategy.
The announcement follows confirmation by French President Emmanuel Macron that the Franco-Italian automaker plans to invest €1 billion in France. The Mulhouse project represents one of the first major industrial initiatives linked to Stellantis’ broader product and manufacturing transformation plan.
The new Peugeot models will be built on the STLA One architecture, which Stellantis intends to deploy across multiple brands and vehicle segments. According to company CEO Antonio Filosa, the platform is expected to become a central component of the automaker’s global operations.
“By 2035, we expect to produce 2 million vehicles annually worldwide on the STLA One platform,” Filosa told reporters during a visit to the Mulhouse site.
The platform is scheduled to debut in Spain in 2027 with production of the next-generation Peugeot 208 before being expanded to other facilities across Europe and additional global markets.
Filosa said the architecture is designed to improve cost efficiency and support Stellantis’ efforts to compete against Chinese manufacturers that have increased their presence in Europe’s electric vehicle market.
“It will be the platform that brings Stellantis to cost parity with Chinese manufacturers producing in Europe,” Filosa said.
He added that STLA One is expected to be approximately 20% more competitive than the company’s current vehicle architectures, helping reduce production costs while supporting a broad range of electrified vehicles.
The Mulhouse investment aligns with the company’s FaSTLAne 2030 strategy, unveiled in May, which calls for €60 billion (US$69.5 billion) in investments over five years. The plan aims to restore profitability through a product offensive that includes more than 60 new vehicle launches and 50 major model updates by 2030.
Under the strategy, Peugeot has been designated one of Stellantis’ four global brands alongside Jeep, Ram and Fiat. These brands will receive 70% of the company’s product and brand investment as Stellantis seeks to maximize scale and manufacturing efficiency.
The product roadmap includes 29 battery-electric vehicles, 15 plug-in hybrid or range-extended electric vehicles, 24 hybrid-electric vehicles and 39 internal-combustion or mild-hybrid models.
Manufacturing optimization is another key pillar of the plan. Stellantis intends to reduce annual European production capacity by more than 800,000 units by 2030 while increasing plant utilization rates from 60% to 80%. According to Filosa, the company plans to achieve these targets without closing factories.
“Capacity reductions are expected to occur without plant closures,” he said, citing initiatives that include product investments at facilities such as Mulhouse and production-sharing agreements with industrial partners at other European sites.
The investment also comes as demand for electrified vehicles continues to grow across the European Union. Industry data from ACEA show that battery-electric vehicles accounted for 19.7% of new EU car registrations in 1Q26, up from 15.3% during the same period a year earlier.
A total of 746,899 battery-electric vehicles were registered in the EU through April 2026. Growth was led by Italy, where registrations increased 73.1%, followed by France at 48.2% and Germany at 41.3%.
Hybrid-electric vehicles remained the largest segment of the market, representing 38.2% of all registrations with 1.45 million units sold. Plug-in hybrid vehicles captured a 9.6% market share, up from 7.9% a year earlier.