The Peugeot 3008 SUV has been spotted during its test runs on Pune roads and that has made the netizens including us wonder if the carmaker is coming back to India. Yes, you heard that right, and to car enthusiasts and most people in India, the name Peugeot is no stranger and has spent some time in our markets, although it failed to make any significant waves in the market. But is the 3008 SUV coming to India?
Well, that’s difficult to answer since the Peugeot 2008 has been also spotted on Indian roads twice now and that car is nowhere to be seen in production for our market. Instead, we got the Citroen C5 Aircross which has similar specs to the 2008. Now, the version of the 3008 SUV that was spied on is the facelift of the previous-gen Peugeot 3008 that was sold in the international markets from 2020 until the new model arrived last year.
This SUV is underpinned under the same EMP2 platform alongside the Citroen C5 Aircross which is currently priced from Rs 36.91 Lakh – Rs 37.69 Lakh (ex-showroom, India). It is speculated that it was the French carmaker that brought the model for testing on the Indian roads for a potential launch but rather it was brought by a local company to benchmark its models since Stellantis does not have any plans to bring this SUV to India.
Nonetheless, the 3008 SUV is quite a cool-looking car with an aggressive price point and efficient powertrains. Speaking of which, the SUV is sold globally with many powertrain options – 130 hp, 1.2-litre petrol, a 136hp, self-charging hybrid, a 130 hp, 1.5-litre diesel and plug-in hybrids with outputs from 179 hp to 300 hp. The top-spec 300 hp model also gets an AWD option as well. However, it’s unsure which powertrain is used by the 3008 that was spied on our roads.
While Stellantis does not have any plans to bring Peugeot into our market as of now since it doesn’t consider India as a profitable market, it may likely launch the Leapmotor EV company in our market and is going to invest another Rs 2000 crore into Citroen India for R&D purposes, while their other brand Jeep is working on launching the new-gen Compass by 2026.
