Jeep to return to Malaysia; Leapmotor as affordable EVs and Citroen as mass market brand – Stellantis

With Stellantis Malaysia having commenced operations in the country in March this year, the company has revealed more about its plans for 2024 along with some of the brands from the Stellantis group which it plans to introduce – or reintroduce – to the Malaysian market this year.

American brand Jeep will be making its return to Malaysia in what Stellantis Malaysia terms as the recreational lifestyle segment, above the upper mainstream segment where Peugeot is positioned, while compatriot Citroen is positioned as a mass market offering.

A new brand set to enter the Malaysian market is Leapmotor, which will be positioned as an affordable EV offering for Malaysia. Stellantis COO for ASEAN and general distributors Daniel Gonzalez told paultan.org that the company is working on introducing the Leapmotor brand in Malaysia within this year.

Jeep will be making its official return to Malaysia, while Leapmotor is also set to be introduced

Meanwhile, the Peugeot brand gets upper mainstream billing within the Stellantis Malaysia group of brands. Given that the Peugeot e-2008 EV has been teased for an expected Malaysian arrival in the middle of this year, paultan.org enquired on ballpark pricing for the e-2008, given Leapmotor’s positioning as the affordable EV offering from the group.

Stellantis Malaysia is working on the positioning and therefore, pricing of the e-2008 relative to the incoming Leapmotor brand, said Gonzalez, in order to avoid having a smaller but more expensive EV within the wider group’s product line-up.

At time of writing, the combustion-powered Peugeot 2008 is priced from RM133,388, according to the Peugeot Malaysia website. The incentives from the Malaysian government offer import duty and excise duty exemption for fully-imported (CBU) EVs until December 2025, while those for locally assembled (CKD) EVs will be until December 31, 2027.

In Europe, the Stellantis group is reportedly set to produce Leapmotor EVs at a plant in Tychy, Poland, and more recently was reported to be also considering Leapmotor production at the Fiat plant in Mirafiori, Turin in Italy.

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