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Vincent Cobée

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Vincent Cobée
NationalityFrench
EducationÉcole Polytechnique
École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées
Harvard Business School
OccupationBusiness executive
CompanyCitroën
TitleChief Executive Officer of Citroën (2020 to 2023)

Vincent Cobée is a French automotive executive who was chief executive officer of the carmaker Citroën from January 2020 to February 2023, first under Groupe PSA and then under Stellantis.[1][2] He was 51 years old when his appointment was announced.[1]

A civil engineer by training, Cobée graduated from the École Polytechnique, the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées and Harvard Business School.[1][3] He began his career in 1991 in public works in France and Singapore, and worked on infrastructure projects in Canada and the Philippines before joining Nissan in 2002.[1] At Nissan he headed purchasing for Nissan Europe and served as a programme director in Japan, and from 2010 to 2017 he was global head of the Datsun brand, leading its launch and roll-out.[4][5] He then moved to Mitsubishi Motors as the executive in charge of product strategy, brand, and products and programmes.[1]

Cobée joined Citroën in October 2019 as deputy to the brand's chief executive, Linda Jackson, with responsibility for accelerating its international development.[6] He succeeded Jackson as chief executive on January 15, 2020, and joined the PSA Global Executive Committee.[1] During his three years in charge he presented the Citroën Ami electric quadricycle in production form, introduced a new brand logo with the Oli concept car in 2022, and argued publicly against what he described as an industry "arms race" towards large, heavy and expensive electric vehicles.[7][8]

Stellantis announced on February 23, 2023 that Cobée had "decided to pursue personal projects outside the company" and that Thierry Koskas, the group's sales and marketing chief, would succeed him from March 1, 2023.[2][9] Stellantis chief executive Carlos Tavares thanked Cobée for having defined the brand's positioning within the group's portfolio of brands.[9]

Early life and education

Cobée studied at the École Polytechnique and the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, and later at Harvard Business School.[1][10] He described himself in a 2022 interview as "a civil engineer by training", adding that "to me form defines function and function defines form".[3]

Career

Public works and infrastructure (1991 to 2002)

Cobée started work in 1991 in public works, on projects in France and in Singapore.[1] In 1996 he moved to Canada with Egis Projects as new projects manager. In 1997 he was posted to the Philippines, where he was promoted to project director.[1][4]

Nissan (2002 to 2017)

Cobée entered the motor industry in 2002, when he joined Nissan Motor Corporation.[1] In 2005 he became head of purchasing for Nissan Europe, and in 2008 he moved to Japan as a programme director for Nissan.[1][4]

In 2010, still based in Japan, he was made global head of Datsun, Nissan's low-cost brand. He led the launch and roll-out of the brand until 2017.[4] French trade press dated his leadership of the brand as a seven-year period from 2010 to 2017.[5][11]

Mitsubishi Motors (2017 to 2019)

In 2017 Cobée moved within the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance to Mitsubishi Motors, in which Nissan held a 34 percent stake.[11] PSA described his role there as executive director in charge of product strategy, brand, and products and programmes, while a later Stellantis biography reproduced by Autocar Professional gave his title as executive planning officer with the same responsibilities.[1][4]

According to Autocar, Cobée held the post until April 2019, when Mitsubishi reorganised its management in the wake of the arrest of the alliance's chief executive, Carlos Ghosn.[6] Caradisiac reported that the reshuffle that followed the Ghosn affair had sidelined him.[11]

Deputy chief executive of Citroën (2019)

Cobée joined Groupe PSA in 2019.[4] His arrival was not formally announced at first; Le Journal de l'Automobile reported in October 2019 that he had joined the brand a few weeks earlier as deputy director in charge of international development.[5] Caradisiac described the hire as another recruitment from the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance by PSA chief Carlos Tavares, himself a former Renault executive, and said his priority would be to speed up the brand's expansion outside Europe, with India a particular target.[11]

In mid-October 2019 the German trade weekly Automobilwoche reported that Cobée would replace Linda Jackson at the head of the brand. PSA did not confirm the report.[5][6] In a statement to Autocar, Citroën said that "as of October 1, 2019, he has been appointed deputy to the brand manager in charge of accelerating the development of the brand internationally", and that he would sit on the brand's executive committee. The statement corrected the description of his role but did not deny that Jackson would leave.[6]

Chief executive of Citroën (2020 to 2023)

PSA announced the change in January 2020 as part of a reshuffle of its executive committee. With effect from January 15, 2020, Jackson moved to a group role leading a study on brand differentiation, and Cobée succeeded her as chief executive of the brand and as a member of PSA's Global Executive Committee.[1][10] At the same time Béatrice Foucher, another former alliance executive, took over the DS brand.[12][13] PSA said Cobée had "a wide experience in international markets, essential for Citroën to succeed in its objective to grow internationally".[1] The changes came weeks after PSA agreed to merge with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, the deal that created Stellantis.[12][10]

PSA gave Cobée a mandate "to set the brand on the path of global sustainable growth".[4] According to Le Figaro, under the Stellantis strategic plan, Citroën was to be one of the two most accessible of the group's 14 brands, alongside Fiat, competing in the core of the market.[14]

In a 2022 interview with the German magazine Auto Zeitung, Cobée said that being part of Stellantis gave the brand opportunities in the shift to electric vehicles, connectivity and autonomous driving, but that the brand had to differentiate itself within the group. Cobée set out three elements of what he called its new brand core: accessibility, including "responsible pricing"; the well-being of customers, extending beyond technical comfort to services such as charging and insurance; and audacity.[15] Cobée told GoAuto later that year: "At Citroen, we want to be accessible, we want to support well-being, and we want to be audacious."[3]

Departure (2023)

On February 23, 2023, Stellantis announced that Cobée had decided to "pursue personal projects outside the company" after three years in the post.[2][4] Thierry Koskas, who had joined PSA from Renault in 2019 and was in charge of sales and marketing for the group, became Citroën chief executive from March 1, 2023, while keeping his group role.[9] Le Figaro noted that it was the first change of leadership at one of Stellantis's brands.[14]

Tavares said in the announcement, in French: "I would like to thank Vincent Cobée for having defined Citroën's positioning within the Stellantis brand portfolio and I wish him the best for his future projects."[2][9] Le Journal de l'Automobile observed that Koskas was Citroën's third chief executive in under ten years, after Jackson took charge in 2014 and Cobée in 2019.[2]

Leadership and management style

Autocar's correspondent, who spent a day with Cobée in Paris about two years into his tenure, wrote that there was "no suggestion he has a carefully nurtured, lifelong connection" with Citroën, as he "has been too busy on a varied global career path for that".[16] The same article described Cobée driving an Ami around the base of the Eiffel Tower for a photo shoot. When four gendarmes came over, he walked up to them "arms wide and a big smile on his face", explained that it was a short camera session, and offered: "I can sell you one of these, if you like." The officers drove off. The journalist called this "an interesting insight into how Cobée gets things done".[16]

In interviews Cobée played down the weight of the brand's history. Asked whether the brand could again build a car with the social impact of the 2CV, he said: "I love our heritage, but I'm not here to replicate our heritage, I'm here to draw the future." He added that "you should always remain very modest about whether you can write history".[7]

Cobée described product development as an iterative, collective process. Of the Oli concept he said: "We didn't come down from a tree with a great idea to do exactly this," and explained that the project drew on "a lot of bottom-up ideas" from Citroën's advanced product and design groups, with about 20 people contributing. He also said the company would watch public reaction and adjust: "We throw an idea, and we look at the way people react."[7] Cobée said he welcomed polarised responses: "I personally enjoy love and hate: everything in the middle, you don't know what it is."[7]

Cobée acknowledged the tension between his stated views and commercial reality. Asked whether Citroën could launch another large, heavy SUV after the Oli, he answered "Ideally, I won't", but conceded that its plug-in hybrid and electric cars had become heavier and that "there are customers for this. I'm a dreamer, but I'm also a salesperson."[7] On working within Stellantis's shared platforms while taking a different approach, he said it was "an issue we need to negotiate on a daily basis".[7]

Major deals and strategic decisions

Ami

The Ami two-seat electric quadricycle, which in France can be driven on the road by unlicensed 14-year-olds, was shown as a concept at the Geneva Motor Show in March 2019, before Cobée arrived. The production model was unveiled in February 2020, a few weeks after he took over.[7][16] Cobée later recalled that at the launch "we had excitement but also tomatoes thrown at us", and by 2022 called the Ami "an interesting success". He said its sales had been accelerated by "gasoline prices going above two euros per litre".[7] A one-off Ami Buggy derivative proved popular enough that Autocar reported it might go into production.[16]

In September 2022 Cobée presented the Oli, an electric concept car that Cobée said his team had begun working on in early 2020.[8][7] Citroën gave an estimated price of €25,000, a projected weight of about 1,000 kg and a 40 kWh battery, and used recycled materials and honeycomb cardboard panels for some non-structural body parts.[8] Cobée said the "fundamental intention was desirable, capable and affordable".[8]

Cobée explained the design in terms of cost and resources: "We wanted the Oli to say 'recycleable, affordable, attractive and efficient'... the vertical windshield glass makes a statement: Great visibility, less material, less weight, very easy to manufacture." He said Citroën had not pursued a sleek or sporty shape because "Citroen is not a sports car brand".[3] Cobée described the car as "a guiding light not only a one-shot" and said that if a full production version followed, "we're talking five years".[7] In a separate interview he said the idea of using the driver's smartphone in place of a built-in infotainment system, as on the Oli, would soon appear on some versions of the brand's cars.[15]

The Oli was the first Citroën to carry the brand's new logo. Cobée said the badge was "not a retro design, it's affirming our values towards the future", and estimated that rolling out the new identity across the dealer network could take about four years.[8]

Affordable electric vehicles

Cobée argued that electric cars were priced beyond most households. In 2022 he put the average transaction price of a car in Europe at €25,000 and that of an electric car at around €45,000, and estimated that on that basis only five to 10 percent of the population was buying electric cars.[7] Cobée criticised recent launches of electric models weighing 2.5 tonnes and costing €100,000 with batteries of about 100 kWh as "affordable by less than one per cent of a population", and said: "freedom of mobility is important, so 2.5 tonnes and €70,000 is not the answer."[7]

Cobée proposed what he called a "systemic approach" combining smaller batteries, vehicle efficiency, faster charging and alternative solutions for the few long trips a year, rather than "an arms race towards the largest possible autonomy".[7] Cobée predicted to Auto Zeitung that from 2024 Citroën would sell battery-electric models at the same price as combustion-engined ones, because new emissions rules such as Euro 7 would raise the cost of combustion cars while battery cars became cheaper with volume. He said he was sure the race for ever-longer electric range would soon end.[15] In the same interview he gave his personal view that hydrogen fuel cells were suitable only for commercial vehicles, because of the cost of building a refuelling network.[15]

On the C3, Citroën's best-selling model, Cobée said the replacement would be shaped by affordability as it moved to electric power. He noted that the average car in France cost the equivalent of 17 months of minimum salary, while the C3 had fallen from 11.5 to 9.5 months over five years through production efficiency.[3]

International expansion

International growth was the stated reason for his appointment.[1] In 2022 Cobée said 78 percent of Citroën's sales were in Europe, down from 85 percent, and named Brazil, Argentina, India, Turkey, Egypt and Morocco as volume markets, with more targeted sales of premium models in places such as Japan.[3] Cobée told Auto Zeitung that the aim was for two-thirds of sales to be in Europe and one-third outside, cited a family of new models presented for India, and said the brand had just started in Indonesia.[15]

Cobée linked this to the "Smart Car" programme for fast-growing markets including India, Asia-Pacific, North Africa and South America. He said the average transaction price in India was less than €10,000, and that cars developed there, while not suitable for European homologation, gave the brand "a library of knowledge, of cost base, of suppliers for us to build our entry offer in Europe".[3] Cobée said the C3 would be replaced "very soon", potentially with a model made in India.[3] A C3 model went on sale in India and Brazil during Cobée's tenure.[2]

Cobée also presented expansion as a hedge against Europe. He told Automotive News Europe, as quoted by GoAuto, that "it's not unreasonable to expect that the European market will go down by 30, 40 per cent in the next 10 years", and that "expansion is a way to protect the brand's volume and our employees".[3] In October 2022 he warned of a possible European recession within nine to 12 months, in which private sales would "collapse", raising "a massive question about how we will finance the shift toward electrification".[3]

Financial and market performance

Citroën was a brand of Groupe PSA and then of Stellantis during Cobée's tenure, and the figures reported for it in the trade press relate to sales volumes rather than profits.

When Jackson took charge in 2014, the brand's European market share stood at 4.5 percent, and it had stayed around that level up to 2019.[6] Cobée told Auto Zeitung in 2022 that, with the overall European market shrinking, the brand aimed to hold its European share of about five percent. He was then responding to a question about an 18 percent fall in Citroën sales in Germany in the first eight months of the year.[15]

In China, where the brand's volumes had fallen to about 10,000 cars, Cobée said sales had doubled each year over three years, to more than 40,000 in 2021, and that China was again one of the brand's top five markets.[15] In October 2022 he told GoAuto that Citroën had doubled its Chinese sales that year.[3]

At the time of his departure, Le Journal de l'Automobile and Le Figaro, citing estimates from the consultancy Inovev, reported that Citroën's worldwide volumes had fallen by a third since 2019, to fewer than 700,000 vehicles in 2022.[2][14] Le Figaro placed this in the context of a slow car industry that favoured upmarket models.[14] According to the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association figures cited by Le Journal de l'Automobile, Citroën sold 341,000 cars in Europe in 2022, down 16.6 percent on the year, for a market share of 3.7 percent, ranking behind Dacia.[2] The same report said that most Stellantis brands had seen sharp falls in European sales in 2022.[2]

Board memberships and outside roles

As chief executive of Citroën, Cobée was a member of the Global Executive Committee of Groupe PSA.[1][4] In 2019 he sat on the Citroën executive committee as deputy to the brand's chief executive.[6]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 <ref>Faris Bouchaala."Appointment of Vincent Cobée as CEO of the Citroen brand".Motorsactu.January 18, 2020.Retrieved October 29, 2026.</ref>
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 <ref>"Thierry Koskas remplace Vincent Cobée à la tête de la marque Citroën".February 23, 2023.Retrieved October 29, 2026.</ref>
  3. ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 <ref>"Citroen's audacious long-term plan".October 17, 2022.Retrieved October 29, 2026.</ref>
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 <ref>"Vincent Cobee steps down from Citroen CEO post".February 23, 2023.Retrieved October 29, 2026.</ref>
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 <ref>"Vincent Cobee, nouveau patron de Citroën ?".October 17, 2019.Retrieved October 29, 2026.</ref>
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 <ref>"Updated: Linda Jackson to be replaced as Citroen CEO, reports say".October 17, 2019.Retrieved October 29, 2026.</ref>
  7. ↑ 7.00 7.01 7.02 7.03 7.04 7.05 7.06 7.07 7.08 7.09 7.10 7.11 7.12 <ref>"Citroën boss Vincent Cobee Q&A: 'Ideally, we won't launch another big, heavy SUV'".Move Electric.Retrieved October 29, 2026.</ref>
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 <ref>"The Citroen Oli concept is a £22,000 cardboard car of the future".September 29, 2022.Retrieved October 29, 2026.</ref>
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 <ref>Vincent Lalanne-Sicaud."Thierry Koskas nommé directeur général de Citroën".February 23, 2023.Retrieved October 29, 2026.</ref>
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 <ref>"Citroen and DS get new bosses in PSA reshuffle".January 15, 2020.Retrieved October 29, 2026.</ref>
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 <ref>"Citroën va avoir un nouveau patron".October 17, 2019.Retrieved October 29, 2026.</ref>
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 <ref>"Former Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi execs take reins at rival PSA's Citroen, DS brands".January 16, 2020.Retrieved October 29, 2026.</ref>
  13. ↑ <ref>Yann Lethuillier."Deux marques du groupe PSA changent de patron".January 16, 2020.Retrieved October 29, 2026.</ref>
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3 <ref>"Thierry Koskas remplace Vincent Cobée à la tête de Citroën".February 23, 2023.Retrieved October 29, 2026.</ref>
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 15.3 15.4 15.5 15.6 <ref>Markus Bach."Citroën-Chef Vincent Cobée: Interview".Auto Zeitung.Retrieved October 29, 2026.</ref>
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 16.3 <ref>"A day in Paris with a Citroen Ami and CEO Vincent Cobée".Retrieved October 29, 2026.</ref>
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