Since the announcement of their new five year plan, the president of Fiat-Chrysler, Sergio Marchionne, has been giving explanations on how they plan to achieve the almost too optimistic plans that I have already described in previous blogs. Until today, most of what was being said about the firm was based on speculations, but as most news sources claim, it is almost impossible to predict Chryslers decisions.
During today’s interview at Tipton, Indianapolis, the company’s CEO said that the electrification of their vehicles will be the most important factor to meet the CAFE standards for the year 2025.I personally doubt that they will be adding any purely electric vehicles to the fleet, but for the next years we we will definitely to see the hybrid versions of the current models of the make.
Following the steps of the F1, as I already mentioned in one of my previous blogs, Chrysler will start using one more gears in their transmissions, with a total of nine gears, to increase fuel efficiency. To supply transmissions for their whole fleet, Chrysler invested 162 million on their new plant in Tipton, where they will employ 204, and plan to expand to 850 by 2015.
As for now, the questions on how the company plans to increase their sales by 2018 remain without answers as Sergio Marchionne refuses to explain how they are even going to be able to supply that many amounts of cars when their plants’ productions are maxed out.
http://www.autonews.com/article/20140513/OEM01/140519968/marchionne-chrysler-to-embrace-hybrids-to-meet-mpg-rules
It seems that Chrysler may be in order for some serious capital expenditures to increase their production capacity. It is a little bit unnerving that Sergio Marchionne is unwillingly to give guidance to investors on future prospects regarding capacity, production, and profitability. The implementation of more gears and increased fuel efficiency is promising, but I think the markets will want a little bit more than that from Chrysler if it wants to maintain consumer confidence.