By Chris Haak

While Fiat’s 500 may be late to the party in some ways (it arrived in the US four full years after its overseas launch and it’s also coming in at what may be the tail end of a “retrofuturism” era), in some ways it’s also right on time.  The car represents not only a beachhead for the Fiat brand’s return to the US, but also desperately-needed fresh product for Chrysler as the company awaits further reinforcements from its new owners across the pond in that boot-shaped country named Italy.

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By Chris Haak

Last week, about two years after exiting bankruptcy protection, Chrysler Group LLC has repaid its outstanding government loans.  Between a $5.9 billion USD repayment to the US government (principal plus interest) and a $1.7 billion USD repayment to the Canadian government, the company repaid $7.6 billion USD of its obligations to the two countries’ taxpayers.  Today, Fiat announced that it has purchased the 6 percent of Chrysler owned by the US government for $500 million USD.

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By Chris Haak

None of these announcements are necessarily earth-shattering, but in a meeting with analysts and media yesterday in Detroit, Chrysler executives outlined several interesting items of note on the product front.  According to Inside Line, fresh off the company’s first profitable quarter since 2006 (!), the company finally seems to be on the verge of breaking out of its long product slump.  Each of the company’s three divisions is getting something good.

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By Chris Haak

Probably due to its much larger size, GM’s bailout and repayment of some government loans has drawn far more attention than the assistance provided to Chrysler has for the past several years.  Chrysler doesn’t even get the perk of a derogatory nickname like “Government Motors” has.

Former “Car Czar” Steven Rattner’s book described how the Obama administration was split nearly 50-50 on whether Chrysler was even worth rescuing, and not everyone is certain of the viability of the now Italian-American automaker in the coming years.

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By Chris Haak

The business case for EVs and hybrids has been on less-than-solid footing for years, both from the consumer’s point of view and the manufacturer’s vantage point.  For instance, the payback period of the price premium that hybrids cost (in terms of savings at the gas pump) often extends beyond the typical ownership duration of a new car.  And we know that it costs GM about $40,000 to build a $41,000 Chevy Volt, and that’s probably excluding considerable promotional and advertising expenses.

Now, Fiat CEO Sergio Marchonne, who has a reptuation for speaking his mind, had this to say about the economics of EVs while on the sidelines of Fiat S.p.A.’s general meeting earlier this week:

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By Chris Haak

Italian automaker Fiat, which of course has a large ownership stake in Chrysler Group, and which is in the process of planting its Fiat flag on US soil again in the near term, may actually move its global headquarters from its historical base in Turin, Italy to Detroit.  Fiat and Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne said at a conference last Friday that the company would likely merge Fiat and Chrysler operations within the next two to three years.

Once the operations have been merged, then there is the question of where to headquarter the future merged company.  Chrysler obviously has a large presence in the US, and Chrysler sales will make up a sizable portion of Fiat’s global sales, particularly if Marchionne’s aggressive volume and market share targets for Chrysler are met over that timeframe.  Based on 2009 numbers, Chrysler’s [depressed] sales would represent about 28 percent of combined Fiat-Chrysler sales, so it’s reasonable.  But there’s probably more to it than just headquartering where the sales are.

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By Charles Krome

One of the themes of the Chrysler Group rebirth that really hasn’t gotten much attention is the new focus the automaker is putting on Mopar, its “service, parts and customer-care brand.” But it’s been an important part of how the company has stayed afloat and in the news, since one way that Chrysler has made up for its lack of truly all-new vehicles has been by launching special, Mopar-ized editions of its current ones. Thus, we’ve seen the Call of Duty Jeep Wrangler, the Ram Outdoorsman and a very tasty Mopar Challenger all break cover this year and all earn a fair amount of buzz along the way.

And we’re going to see a lot more of this at the coming North American International Auto Show in Detroit, where two new specially kitted-out models will debut: A Mopar-enhnaced Fiat 500 and Chrysler 200 Super S.

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By Chris Haak

Fiat and Chrysler CEO (though not Fiat/Chrysler CEO) Sergio Marchionne told reporters in Milan, on the sidelines of an event to celebrate the split of Fiat into two pieces, that if Chrysler launched its expected IPO around the middle of this year, Fiat could ultimately increase its stake in the smallest US-based automaker up to 51 percent prior to the IPO.  Currently, Fiat owns 20 percent of Chrysler Group LLC.

Fiat will receive 15 percent more of Chrysler (to 35 percent total) if the company meets certain operational benchmarks, which include making a small engine in the US (which it’s doing for the Mexico-built Fiat 500), meets sales objectives outside North America, and sells a domestically made car in the US that gets over 40 miles per gallon.  If Fiat repays government loans from Canada and the US before 2013, the company has the option to buy another 16 percent of Chrysler, which would bring the total potential ownership stake up to 51 percent.

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By Chris Haak

Automotive News [sub] reported this week on an analysis prepared by consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers that projects huge global production volumes for shared platforms.  We’re not talking about rebadges here, but rather the fundamental “bones” underlying a particular vehicle, or in this case, a series of vehicles.

According to PwC, the top-ten vehicle platforms for 2016 will account for over 27.1 million units of production.  These same platforms, which are in various stages of their rollout in 2010, account for about 14.2 million units of production.  Yes, increased sales volumes as the global auto industry recovers can be partially credited to this potential 91 percent increase, but most of it points to consolidation of disparate vehicles – sometimes sold under completely different brands – onto versions of a single platform.

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By Charles Krome

Every now and then, there’s a flurry of discussion here in the U.S. about the importance of buying vehicles from one of the home teams, and this usually leads into a discussion of exactly what it means to be an American automaker. Well, that’s the case today, thanks to a recent story on CNNMoney.com.

The impetus behind this is a recent discussion a CNN writer had with John Krafcik, CEO of Hyundai Motor America. The bottom line: “By next year about 80% of the vehicles Korean automaker Hyundai sells in the United States will be built here.”

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