It will be on the new DS 7 Crossback that we will be able to see the results of the PSA Group's autonomous driving development program.
It won't be Peugeot or Citroën, but DS. One of the most recent brands of the PSA Group will have the right to debut the group's new autonomous driving technologies. And it will be the DS 7 Crossback the first model to integrate them. This means that the SUV presented in Geneva, the first of the French brand, will be equipped with a set of level 2 technologies (which still require control of the vehicle by the driver).
The new DS 7 Crossback may reach European markets later this year, but according to Marguerite Hubsch, spokeswoman for the PSA Group, there is still no date for the implementation of these technologies in the French SUV. Systems debuted on the DS7 will later be gradually introduced in models in the Peugeot, Citroën and the newly acquired Opel ranges.
Since July 2015, Grupo PSA's prototypes have traveled 120,000 km in Europe and are already authorized to proceed with the testing of autonomous vehicles with “amateur” drivers. Tests will be carried out along 2000 km of expressways, in collaboration with its technological partners, such as Bosch, Valeo, ZF/TRW and Safran.
As for tier 3 autonomous driving technologies, which are not yet legal in Europe, Marguerite Hubsch points to 2020 as the year to introduce these technologies into production models.
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But this won't be the only new feature of the DS 7 Crossback. From the spring of 2019 the French brand will offer a E-Tense hybrid engine , which is still in the development stage. This engine will consist of a gasoline engine supported by two electric units (one at the front, one at the back), for a total of 300 hp and 450 Nm of torque directed to the four wheels and with an autonomy of 60 km in 100 mode % electric.
