BrandsDS Automobiles — History, Models and Everything You Need to Know
AI-generated concept illustration — DS Automobiles brand overview. | Rev N Rise
DS Automobiles is France's youngest premium car brand — created in 2014 to carry forward the legacy of one of the most revolutionary cars ever built, the original Citroën DS of 1955. Positioned as Stellantis's French answer to German luxury brands, DS combines distinctive Parisian design sensibility with genuine motorsport technology developed through its Formula E electric racing programme — making it one of the more interesting and underrated premium brands in the current European market.
DS Automobiles was officially established as a standalone premium brand in 2014, spun off from Citroën within what was then PSA Group. The decision drew directly on the legacy of the original Citroën DS, launched in 1955 — a car so technologically and visually radical for its era that it remains one of the most celebrated automotive designs of the entire 20th century. The DS used pioneering hydropneumatic self-levelling suspension, aerodynamic styling that looked decades ahead of contemporary cars and a level of ride comfort that competitors could not match. The Citroën DS sold over 1.4 million units across two decades and became a symbol of French design ambition and engineering confidence.
The decision to create a standalone DS brand in 2014 reflected PSA's strategic recognition that the DS name carried genuine premium equity that a mainstream Citroën badge could not fully exploit. By positioning DS Automobiles as an entirely separate brand — with its own dealership network, its own design language and its own pricing strategy — PSA, and subsequently Stellantis, aimed to create a credible French alternative to Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz, occupying a segment that French manufacturers had largely ceded to German competitors since the decline of Citroën's own premium ambitions decades earlier.
DS Automobiles has competed in Formula E — the FIA's all-electric single-seater racing championship — since the series' early seasons, initially through DS Virgin Racing and subsequently as DS Techeetah. The partnership has been genuinely successful, winning multiple Drivers' and Teams' Championships across various Formula E seasons. Unlike some manufacturer motorsport programmes that exist primarily for marketing purposes, DS Automobiles has explicitly used its Formula E involvement to develop and refine electric powertrain technology, battery management software and energy efficiency techniques that subsequently inform the engineering of its production electric vehicles — giving the brand's EV technology a genuine competitive racing pedigree that smaller premium brands often lack.
DS Automobiles' core differentiator within the premium segment is a distinctively French approach to design and materials — drawing explicitly on Parisian fashion house collaborations, watchmaking-inspired interior detailing and a design language that consciously avoids the visual conventions established by German premium brands. The brand has collaborated with French fashion houses and craftspeople on special editions, leaning into a luxury identity built on artisanal Parisian taste rather than purely technical or performance credentials. The Formula E programme gives DS a genuine motorsport-derived electric vehicle development pedigree that helps differentiate its EV technology claims from brands without comparable racing investment. DS Automobiles remains a relatively low-volume, somewhat under-the-radar player in the European premium market — its challenge is building broader brand recognition and dealer network strength to match the genuine design and engineering merit of its products, competing against German rivals with vastly larger marketing budgets and longer-established premium reputations.
