The launch of the new Dispatch in the third quarter of 2016 marked a sea change for Citroen by giving it a genuine contender in the hotly-contested medium van sector.
The Dispatch is a high-quality, versatile product that can stand toe to toe with the likes of the Ford Transit Custom, the Volkswagen Transporter and the Renault Trafic/Vauxhall Vivaro.
Citroen’s UK LCV boss Jeremy Smith has called the new Dispatch the brand’s most important model launch for two decades, since the introduction of the Berlingo light van. Indeed, Citroen is confident the new Dispatch will enable the brand to compete as strongly in the mid-sized segment as it does not only in light vans but also with the Relay in the large van category.
The Dispatch impressed us so much that we crowned it our LCV of the Year for 2017, alongside the Peugeot Expert and Toyota Proace that share its platform in Sevelnord, France. In presenting the award we noted that the Dispatch represents “a significant step up in terms of quality, practicality and economy compared with [its] predecessor”. Smith says the recognition is extremely beneficial in helping to establish the Dispatch in the marketplace. “It’s very valuable to demonstrate impartiality, to show the van is as good as we think it is,” he explains.
“If you’re winning awards people think “this must be good”. Smith claims the Dispatch has made a solid start with sales up 40% year-on-year in the first five months of 2017 compared to the previous, second-generation model (2,551 vs 1,820 units), in a sector that he says has declined by 10%.
“We are doing well in a sector that will bounce back,” says Smith. He admits the old Dispatch sold mainly on price and as a workhorse and looked dated against both its peers and the new, third-generation van, which in contrast, he says is selling both to existing customers and conquesting business from rivals such as the huge-selling Custom and even breaching the ramparts of the “holy grail” that is the VW Transporter.
But in volume terms, he suggests the Renault Trafic and Vauxhall Vivaro are perhaps the most relevant competitors. Interestingly, Smith believes LCV buyers are becoming more like car buyers in making emotional purchase decisions. He says the medium van sector is full of attractive, well-designed vehicles and numbers the Dispatch among them.
With the Dispatch, Citroen, together with Peugeot and Toyota and their equivalent products, has broken new ground by offering a compact XS version. Smith says some contract hire customers have moved up from the Berlingo as they get more van for just an extra £10 to £15 a month.
“Dealers are saying they are moving people up,” he says. The PSA brands Citroen and Peugeot have been pulling their operations more closely together in recent years, most notably in product terms, but their respective customer profiles in the UK have traditionally differed, with Citroen gaining more business from SMEs and Peugeot striking more deals with major fleets, such as the Royal Mail.
So, is this still the case?
Well, largely yes, it seems. Smith says Citroen “hits” fleets of up to 500 units as well as smaller firms through the ability of its 90-strong Business Centre network to win business at a regional level. “It comes down to the relationships the Business Centre has with customers locally,” Smith says.
He says customers tend to deal with their local dealership for ease of servicing, regardless of the badge on the van, and claims that, when it comes to platform sharing (such as the Dispatch, Expert and Proace, for example), “many people don’t realise it’s the same product”.
Reaching to the converted
Citroen has been prominent among manufacturers establishing a footing in the conversion market with its Ready to Run programme, which is based on the Relay large van range.
Smith says the brand has 150 Euro5 conversions left in stock and is now starting to produce Euro6-bodied Relays.
Since the introduction of European Whole Vehicle Type Approval legislation in 2013 manufacturers have muscled into the conversion sector as some independent bodybuilders have found the administrative burden of compliance with the regulations prohibitive.
Smith says Citroen sold 750 Relay-based conversions in 2016 compared to just 100 three years previously. He claims sales were up again by 13% year-on-year to the end of May 2017.
The latest addition to the Ready to Run ready-bodied line-up is a car transporter. Based on the Relay ‘back-to-back’ cab, it was built by body builder Advanced KFS and boasts a payload of 1,541kg. Revealed at the CV Show, Smith claims Citroen has sold 12 of the car transporters already.
KFS has also developed a body for carrying plant machinery upon the same platform, and Smith explains: “We can do variations upon a theme but within an off-the-peg offer.”
He adds, however, that Citroen tends to steer clear of the most bespoke conversions due to the lack of financial viability with such limited demand. “What’s a niche big enough to explore?” is the question that must be answered, he reasons. “We constantly look at the market [to determine] where is there an opportunity big enough?”
Smith says the brand is currently considering introducing a low-loading Luton body based on the Relay. As yet he says there are no plans to bring the Dispatch or Berlingo into the Ready to Run scheme. He notes that Fiat Professional offers a dropside version of the Doblo Cargo but does not think the numbers would make it worthwhile for Citroen to take a similar path.
The next generation of the Berlingo light van is due in 2018 and, although not confirmed, it would be no surprise to see it revealed at the CV Show. Citroen is a strong backer of the NEC event and debuted the current Relay there in 2014 and the Dispatch two years later.
Smith points out that the current Berlingo is still holding its own and was, in fact, the best-selling light van in May on 1,254 registrations, ahead of both the Peugeot Partner on just over 1,100 and the Ford Transit Custom on more than 1,000.
Moving down the line-up, and the Nemo city van, which like Peugeot’s Bipper is based on the Fiat Professional Fiorino, is expected to be phased out within the next couple of years. While it took the Fiorino’s Euro6 1.3 turbo diesel engines, it did not adopt the Italian model’s styling facelift.
Citroen will expect the new Berlingo, which Smith says makes more sense to contract hire customers, to cover for the loss of the Nemo, of which it had sold just 351 examples in the first five months of the year.
Charging up to the grid
In contrast to the small van sector, Citroen is aiming to up its game in electric vans. In March it added an L2 Berlingo Electric to the shorter L1 that launched in 2015.
Smith points out that while the PSA brands dominate diesel light van sales with the Berlingo and Partner, their share of the EV sector, dominated by Nissan with the E-NV200, is negligible.
“We are massively underachieving,” Smith admits. He says the market for EVs is still miniscule – totalling about 1,000 in the UK last year, with about half of these, he claims, accounted for by dealer demonstrators. But he thinks the “tipping point” for take-up is getting closer with the spread of low-emission zones and the anti-diesel lobby gathering momentum.
The Berlingo electric has an official range of 106 miles, but Citroen admits this reduces to around 88 miles in real-world conditions. Smith argues that if an operator covers less than 80 miles a day and can charge overnight an electric van can make economic sense.
He claims: “In EVs now we have a product on a par with the best”
Put together, the Berlingo and Partner take a combined share of about a third of the light van sector and Smith says: “We want to match this proportionate share in the electric van market.”
But with a stronger line-up in conventional, converted and electric vans, Citroen reckons that whatever questions operators put to the brand, it now has the answers.
