User-agent: Mediapartners-Google* Disallow: Trucks World News: FIAT-CHRYSLER's news * USA: DEAL with GOOGLE ? -- ** Italy / USA: Adding trucks
Google
 
Loading

Apr 29, 2016

FIAT-CHRYSLER's news * USA: DEAL with GOOGLE ? -- ** Italy / USA: Adding trucks

* Michigan - Experts: Fiat Chrysler, Google deal makes sense


-- A partnership between Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV and Google could give both parties needed resources to accelerate the development and production of next-generation car technologies and autonomous vehicles, according to industry experts... Fiat Chrysler has been slower than most automakers, including its crosstown rivals General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co., in investing in and supporting the development of autonomous vehicles... Google, reported to be in talks with Fiat Chrysler, doesn’t have the experience or infrastructure to mass-produce vehicles, as it continues to refine and test its fleet of self-driving cars that have driven about 1.5 million miles in autonomous mode... Google executives also have stated that they do not want to build their own cars. Fiat Chrysler could potentially be a contract manufacturer for Google’s autonomous cars, a move the company has made with other products... Silicon Valley needs Detroit; Detroit needs Silicon Valley,” said Autotrader.com senior analyst Michelle Krebs. “It’s very interesting” ... 
(Photo from REUTERS, by ALEXANDRIA SAGEA - Lexus version of a Google Self Driving car is shown in Moutain View, California, U.S., April 8, 2016) Detroit, MICH, USA - The Detroit News, by Michael Wayland - April 28, 2016 


** Lombardy / Michigan - ​Fiat Chrysler drops cars, adds trucks, shifts jobs

--- With lower gas prices shifting North American driving preferences toward bigger vehicles, Fiat Chrysler (FCAU) has accelerated its transition away from passenger cars with an impact on its manufacturing footprint across the globe... Fiat Chrysler Automobiles CEO, Sergio Marchionne, said previously that the market shift in the U.S. to trucks and SUVs is permanent, aided by low gasoline prices, and that Fiat Chrysler would adjust to it... The production changes will bring an increase in North American jobs, but some of the production will be moved to Mexico, Marchionne said... Here's what we know about the production plans so far:

 * FCA will retool a factory in Sterling Heights, Michigan, north of Detroit, so it can make a new Ram pickup truck that will come out early in 2018...
 * A factory in Warren, Michigan, that now makes the Ram pickup will be retooled to make the Jeep Wagoneer or Grand Wagoneer, an SUV that's larger than the Jeep Grand Cherokee...
 * Production of the aging Jeep Compass and Patriot compact SUVs would move to Toluca, Mexico, when a new version comes out. Those are now made at a 4,000-worker factory in Belvidere, Illinois... Last year's contract with the United Auto Workers union promised new vehicles for Sterling Heights and Belvidere...
 * FCA is talking with other manufacturers to make small and midsize cars, but Chief Financial Officer, Richard Palmer, said he couldn't discuss the talks. 
* FCA will continue to make larger rear-wheel-drive muscle and luxury cars, and it should be able to grow in that area, Marchionne said. But it's possible, he said, when the plans are finished that "the true passenger car side will represent the lesser portion of our portfolio than it does today."
 * ... That doesn't include Alfa Romeo, which is being built in Italy for export under plans to shift Italian production to higher-margin premium models... 

Fiat Chrysler said its North America adjusted earnings before interest and taxes doubled to 1.2 billion euros on higher revenues, lower advertising spending and lower recall campaign costs. Sales of Jeep, Ram trucks and minivans led an 8 percent boost in regional sales to 634,000 vehicles...
Milano, Lombardy, Italy / Auburn Hills, MICH, USA - CBS News - April 26, 2016

Labels:

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home