Fiat News: Rumorpile: Marchionne's Final Five Year Plan Includes Expanding Jeep, Shrinking Chrysler and Fiat

[William Maley]

Friday will mark the end of an era as Fiat Chrysler Automobiles CEO Sergio Marchionne will present his final five-year plan before he retires next year. Bloomberg has gotten a possible preview of what to expect from various sources.

The overall plan will see FCA focus their resources on "promising niches" instead of competing against such brands as Volkswagen and Toyota in the mass-market. This is possibly seen as a possible plus if FCA was somehow able to partner/merge with another automaker.

Jeep is expected to be the focal point of the new five-year plan. Currently, the brand makes up 70 percent of FCA's profits according to estimates from analysts. Marchionne wants to double the sales of brand by 2022 from 1.4 million vehicles sold last year. To do this, Jeep will expand its presence in Asia, Brazil, and Europe. The lineup will also expand with hybrid models arriving next year. Ram Trucks will also be expanded to other markets around the world. There is also talk about possibly combining Alfa Romeo and Maserati as "a single division in FCA's financial reports." Investors could see as a possible first step to a spinoff.

Meanwhile, Fiat's lineup is expected to be cut down to just 500 and Panda, with sales limited to Europe, Brazil, and emerging markets. This could mean Fiat withdrawing from the U.S. and China due to poor sales. The former could be problem due to dealer contracts. There is also talk about shrinking Chrysler, though we don't know how much smaller it could get aside from just disappearing.

We'll find out more details later this week.

Source: Bloomberg via Automotive News (Subscription Required)

View full article

[Robert Hall]

Hmm..well, Chrysler is down to 2 models, Dodge has 4...don't think they can shrink much more. 

[ccap41]

Ford said this and everybody freaks out... 

[David]

Sadly, FCA forced Fiat down the throats of existing Jeep,Ram,Dodge,Chrysler mega dealers. Fiat could not make it in the US and it was stupid to bring it back, just like it has been stupid to bring back to life Alfa.

I suspect some kind of we pull your Chrysler dealership as you do not sell enough product when it is Sergio's own Stupidity as killing the label by starving of products.

I can see merging it all under a Dodge label or officially killing off stand alone places by saying you have to be a mega merged dealership of those labels. A one stop shop of Jeep, Ram, Dodge, Chrysler, Fiat, Alfa, Maserati. etc.

Why is an out of date CEO allowed to build the next 5 year plan? He was supposed to go this year and the story now says next year. So a year by year CEO job? 🤔

More questions than answers by this story and the links.

[Robert Hall]

8 minutes ago, dfelt said:

 

I can see merging it all under a Dodge label or officially killing off stand alone places by saying you have to be a mega merged dealership of those labels. A one stop shop of Jeep, Ram, Dodge, Chrysler, Fiat, Alfa, Maserati. etc.

 

The way it is now is Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Ram are often in one dealer...my local here (and my local in Arizona) are like that.  Fiat, Alfa and Maserati are somewhere out of sight... (looks like there is a Maserati dealer in the far West suburbs, a Alfa Fiat dealer to the southwest of me, and standalone Alfa and Fiat dealers to the east of me). 

1 hour ago, ccap41 said:

Ford said this and everybody freaks out... 

It's a bit different there, though...Ford has sedans, CUVs, SUVs, and trucks all under one brand, while FCA has them spread over 4 brands...

Edited May 30, 2018 by Cubical-aka-Moltar

[David]

https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/chrysler/2018/05/30/sergio-marchionne-fiat-chrysler/651402002/

Interesting read on the same story as Bill wrote about above.

[David]

12 minutes ago, Cubical-aka-Moltar said:

The way it is now is Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Ram are often in one dealer...my local here (and my local in Arizona) are like that.  Fiat, Alfa and Maserati are somewhere out of sight... (looks like there is a Maserati dealer in the far West suburbs, a Alfa Fiat dealer to the southwest of me, and standalone Alfa and Fiat dealers to the east of me). 

We have one mega dealer with all those brands in one place in Kirkland Washington, but the rest are all stand alone all over. Kinda crazy, I think it would help FCA to merge them into a single location of all brands. Yup someone will loose out, they always do.

[Robert Hall]

9 minutes ago, dfelt said:

We have one mega dealer with all those brands in one place in Kirkland Washington, but the rest are all stand alone all over. Kinda crazy, I think it would help FCA to merge them into a single location of all brands. Yup someone will loose out, they always do.

I guess the way the standalone Fiat, Alfa and Maserati stores around here stay in business is that they are owned by mega dealer chains, like Ganley which has Fiat, Alfa, CDJR, Ford, Toyota, Hyundai, Chevy, etc stores..

Edited May 30, 2018 by Cubical-aka-Moltar

[David]

52 minutes ago, Cubical-aka-Moltar said:

I guess the way the standalone Fiat, Alfa and Maserati stores around here stay in business is that they are owned by mega dealer chains, like Ganley which has Fiat, Alfa, CDJR, Ford, Toyota, Hyundai, Chevy, etc stores..

Yup, I know that GM came in during the bankruptcy period and cleaned house on all the stand alone places and now you have mega dealerships that are Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac. One Stop shopping which I like. I think FCA needs to clean house as well and it will cost them I am sure. Gonna be interesting to see what happens to some of these places as the Stand Alone Fiat place down south advertises how they have over 500 new fiats and over 100 used in stock. Best selection in the state.

FCA cuts Fiat to one model and I do not see that store surviving on it's own, though I do think it just recently got bought up by a mega dealership, so guess they could survive that way.

[David]

Another good read on this.

https://www.autoblog.com/2018/05/30/fiat-chrysler-sergio-marchionne-ev-electric-hybrid/

Based on info from Reuters.

I do like how they state that Sergio has in the past made good value for stock investors by doing spin offs, but to date has not ever been able to deliver on a turnaround plan.

Analyst also say that Alfa Romeo is a bleeding cash cow that is not profitable. They imply it would have been better for Sergio to reinvest profits in his American name brands than to prop up Fiat and Bring back Alfa from the grave.

[Suaviloquent]

I still can’t believe they thought the 500 would do well.

 

i wonder if the other kind of automotive heresy is possible. We all saw Jaguar and then even Rolls and Bentley start producing ‘high bodied’ cars.

 

what if they just do the reverse for Jeep? Like for the sake of argument, make a sleek Volvo cross country like thing , add more body cladding where appropriate (Trailhawk), make it a lift back, make the 7 slot grille sexy and sleek and then slap a Jeep badge on! 

 

 

 

[daves87rs]

1 hour ago, dfelt said:

Yup, I know that GM came in during the bankruptcy period and cleaned house on all the stand alone places and now you have mega dealerships that are Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac. One Stop shopping which I like. I think FCA needs to clean house as well and it will cost them I am sure. Gonna be interesting to see what happens to some of these places as the Stand Alone Fiat place down south advertises how they have over 500 new fiats and over 100 used in stock. Best selection in the state.

FCA cuts Fiat to one model and I do not see that store surviving on it's own, though I do think it just recently got bought up by a mega dealership, so guess they could survive that way.

Interesting...as we still have stand alones .here...though there are some mega stores that do sell everything....

Sadly that plan is pretty much going to be for jeep and Dodge trucks/SUVs. There are no replacements coming for the sedans...at all. And end of production for those are but a few years away...

 

Unless they can source some new platforms, the line up is going to look pretty sad.......

[regfootball]

2 hours ago, dfelt said:

 

Analyst also say that Alfa Romeo is a bleeding cash cow that is not profitable. They imply it would have been better for Sergio to reinvest profits in his American name brands than to prop up Fiat and Bring back Alfa from the grave.

lol, didn't we all figure this?

There is one location close to here with a separate Dodge / Ram dealership and another a mile away that is Chrysler / Jeep.  It really would make more sense to combine all those like a majority of them already are.  

I sort of hope they keep both Chrysler and Dodge, if they trim each, in a combined settling they are large enough to exist.

My new Chrysler van is very good.  So i would hate to see them lose the brand.  I would like to see it go up to 4 or 5 models at least.  A van, a crossover, a 300 sedan replacement, and? what else.

[daves87rs]

2 hours ago, regfootball said:

lol, didn't we all figure this?

There is one location close to here with a separate Dodge / Ram dealership and another a mile away that is Chrysler / Jeep.  It really would make more sense to combine all those like a majority of them already are.  

I sort of hope they keep both Chrysler and Dodge, if they trim each, in a combined settling they are large enough to exist.

My new Chrysler van is very good.  So i would hate to see them lose the brand.  I would like to see it go up to 4 or 5 models at least.  A van, a crossover, a 300 sedan replacement, and? what else.

Just means your new van will be a dodge, same model-just new brand.......

[ccap41]

14 hours ago, dfelt said:

Analyst also say that Alfa Romeo is a bleeding cash cow that is not profitable. They imply it would have been better for Sergio to reinvest profits in his American name brands than to prop up Fiat and Bring back Alfa from the grave

Personally, I think there is room in the market for Alfa but I don't understand bringing back low margin compacts with Fiat. I'd get rid of Fiat and keep Alfa as a real luxury line to compete with the Germans and Caddy. They might be bleeding because of them right now but I bet a lot of that is just people don't even know where to buy them yet. They probably have a really small dealer network. 

Dodge

Ram

Chrisler

Alfa

There is room for them all. They just need to do things right. Make Chrylser like a Lincoln/Lexus/Acura/Infiniti competitor. Dodge would be mainstream. Alfa and Ram are pretty clear what their roles are already. 

Hahaha I forgot about Jeep but their role is also obvious. 

15 hours ago, Cubical-aka-Moltar said:

It's a bit different there, though...Ford has sedans, CUVs, SUVs, and trucks all under one brand, while FCA has them spread over 4 brands...

The goal is the same, kill sedans. 

15 hours ago, Cubical-aka-Moltar said:

The way it is now is Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Ram are often in one dealer...

That's all i see here as well. I actually can't think of one that isn't all 4 brands. 

[ccap41]

13 hours ago, Suaviloquent said:

what if they just do the reverse for Jeep? Like for the sake of argument, make a sleek Volvo cross country like thing , add more body cladding where appropriate (Trailhawk), make it a lift back, make the 7 slot grille sexy and sleek and then slap a Jeep badge on! 

I think this could work! I think something like the Subaru Crosstrek or new Focus Active would work with a Jeep nameplate.