Since it started turning out its own products, DS Automobiles has started to show signs of promise - the 7 Crossback is a highly impressive thing, while the 3 Crossback is nice enough, if you can avoid speccing it up to silly money. Well, here's another sharp-looking machine: it's the DS 9 and it has the likes of the Audi A4 and BMW 3 Series in its sights. The exterior rather speaks for itself, including those 1955 DS-honouring lamp clusters in the C-pillars, while the interior is said to be made of high-quality materials and boasting much more space than the Germanic competition, mainly because the DS 9 is 4.93 metres from tip to tail. Following its Geneva Motor Show debut, the DS 9 will go into production in China and while that market is expected to take the lion's share of the units, DS Automobiles has said it is slated for sale across the world. The launch car will be an E-Tense plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV), with the same 225hp drivetrain and 11.9kWh battery pack as the 508 Hybrid (as the DS 9 sits on the same EMP2 chassis as the Peugeot), while both 250- and 360hp derivatives of the same 1.6-litre PureTech PHEV will be forthcoming; the last of these is a four-wheel-drive version, using an enhanced example of the system found in the Peugeot 3008 Hybrid4. If you don't like PHEVs, for some reason, then there's a solitary non-E-Tense DS 9, which has the straight 225hp 1.6-litre turbocharged petrol engine from the PSA Group.