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Automotive News & Views Chrysler Allies With Fiat
412 messages, Last post on Nov 09, 2009 at 7:02 PM
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
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The upside for Chrysler is easy to see. It will be a year or two before Fiat has products that can be sold in the U.S. market (at least). In the meantime, Chrysler has an excuse to ask congress for funds to continue operations until the Italian cavalry arrives. It's a plausible plan for viability that they don't otherwise possess... a promise of new product that they can't afford to design themselves. It may not WORK, but it will sell to congress, I think.
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...Italian cavalry arrives. Oh, man, that is funny. Unintentional, perhaps, but still funny. However, I do agree with you on your first point. It's not like Fiat can start selling 500's and Bravo's in the next few months at your local Chrysler dealerships, and it will take even longer to update the factories here in the US to build Fiats locally. The other side of the coin, though, is that Jeeps and minivans were built in Europe at the old DC factories - does Chrysler still retain ownership, or did they go back to Daimler when the company was sold to Cerebus? I was looking at the Fiat UK website ... here's what they offer: 500 - Halo car; would compete well with the Mini. Bravo - The "large" small car that Chrysler can't seem to get right. Spicy alternative to the Golf or Mazda 3. Grande Punto - Seems to slot between the Panda and the Bravo in size, but marketed as more of a sporty alternative to either. Panda - A worthy competitor to the Fit or Yaris. Sedici - Twin to the Suzuki SX4 crossover - makes me wonder if the partnership with Suzuki will continue. Multipla - Segment buster when it was first introduced, but now would compete with the Mazda 5 and the Kia Rondo. Ugly as sin, but I believe that the small minivan market could use something like this. Doblo - A slightly larger people carrier; if Chrysler decided to drop the GC, this might serve well. Qubo - A small van, used as both a commercial vehicle and a Honda Element-like funky people carrier. If Ford is federalizing the Transit for the US, it makes sense for Fiat/Chrysler to offer this as well. What's interesting about the whole deal is that no money is changing hands -- did Cerebus just give Fiat 35% of the company? Tells you how much Cerebus thinks it's worth. |
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Replying to: lokki (Jan 21, 2009 6:51 am) |
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Replying to: lokki (Jan 21, 2009 6:51 am)  The upside for Chrysler is easy to see. It will be a year or two before Fiat has products that can be sold in the U.S. market (at least). It may not WORK, but it will sell to congress, I think. Uuugggghhhhhhh! Do you know how much money Chrysler could lose, that the taxpayer will have to cover, during that time?!! And for what? What benefit would a Chrysler-Fiat be to anyone except those who own or work at Chrysler-Fiat? The U.S. already has Priuses, Insight, Smart, and Ford has the new Fiesta, amongst others. I don't want to shovel $30B into Chrysler to keep it afloat, so that 50K people can buy a Fiat a few years from now!!!  Also the European market is severely declining due to the recession, and I doubt it would be good for anyone to introduce new brands in Europe. The only answer to the current global vehicle market - meaning too many brands and too much production, is for several to go out of business. I don't see it as very logical for each government to prop up their companies, to pay for workers and vehicles no one wants. |
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Replying to: andre1969 (Jan 20, 2009 12:02 pm) Owner of a 2004 Quest |
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Replying to: zoomzoomn (Jan 21, 2009 5:39 am) Yeah. Kind of like the VW Rabbit but without the legendary Volkswagen reliability. 
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Replying to: fezo (Jan 21, 2009 11:02 am)
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Replying to: berri (Jan 21, 2009 11:05 am) I was racking my brain for the name Strada until zoomzoom brought it up but the car itself was stuck in my head. I looked at one when they were new. The dealer sold Fiats, Mazda and I think Mercedes at the time. Later he added Buicks. The good news is i didn't buy the Strada. The bad news is I bought the Rabbit. |
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Chrysler LLC and Fiat S.p.A. have little in the way of engine and transmission technology that can be transplanted into each other’s vehicles, analysts say--at least not right away. They are talking about two years before any fruit of this alliance would show up. Two years is an awful long time for Chrysler in its present condition. Can you say BILLIONS more in American taxpayer life support by 2011? Because of the Dodge Ram pickup and Jeep SUVs, Chrysler relies mostly on beefy Hemi V8 engines and large-displacement V6s to power its high-volume vehicles. That dependence cost Chrysler in 2008.... ......For now, Fiat probably would shun Chrysler’s pushrod Hemi V8s, said Andrew Close, senior technical research analyst at Global Insight in London. Fiat likely would turn to its Maserati unit for a lightweight, more technologically sophisticated overhead-cam V8 for Alfa Romeo sports cars and sedans, Close said. ......Fiat also has invested in technologies that save fuel and reduce emissions. One such technology is the dual-clutch transmission, which retains the fuel economy of a manual transmission while providing the convenience of an automatic. Another is the stop-start system, which automatically turns off the engine when the vehicle stops and quickly restarts it when the driver is ready to accelerate. Because of those investments, Fiat likely would not use Chrysler’s front-wheel-drive, Two Mode hybrid technology. ....Chrysler couldn’t profitably transplant Fiat’s new generation of four-cylinder diesel engines into its small vehicles because of high European production costs and the expense of getting the engines to meet stricter U.S. emissions standards, said Jim Hall, an analyst with 2953 Analytics in suburban Detroit. Chrysler also couldn’t profitably import two small four-cylinder gasoline engines--a 1.4-liter and a 1.8-liter--because of the high production costs stemming from building the engines in Europe. Yet despite all this there is supposedly some benefit to Chrysler in this "alliance"?? The article goes on to say that maybe in some distant future Chrysler could build Fiat-designed engines in the U.S., and use Fiat platforms as the basis for new models. How many years out is that? 5? 10? It alternates between "2011 is a realistic timeframe" and "someday this could provide benefit". Absurd. The truth is this alliance has less potential than the proposed one earlier between it and GM. And I wouldn't have thought that was possible. http://www.autoweek.com/article/20090121/FREE/901219987 |
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From today's Detroit free Press... "Italian automaker Fiat, which is set to take an initial 35% stake in Chrysler, reported a 69.8% drop in fourth-quarter profit, to $232.38 million, blamed on a slump in demand in western Europe and the economic slowdown in South America. Full-year profit was down 16.2%, to about $2.24 billion." Profits were down, but, unlike our domestic automakers and others, including Toyota if I'm not mistaken, Fiat was profitable. I'm sure the margins are very fragile, but that's the state of the industry today. |
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