From The Detroit Free Press -
Fiat Chrysler should change its name, investor says
The Fiat brand has made some horrible mistakes in North America. Their footprint is getting smaller in the EU. Jeep and Ram can not go it alone or merged with GM and Ford as this one investors group imagines.
FCA needs to be whole. Maserati is the leading brand in for electrification, meaning they're getting most of the engineering attention for this technology. It doesn't make sense for another FCA brand to go after Tesla and the like. Besides, if all that is left is Ram and Jeep, which one should go after Tesla? Jeep is going to have plugins and EVs, but the cost and desirability for such vehicles will be a liability in the near term. Chrysler has the Pacifica PHEV, but if that brand goes away, so does that model.
The Fiat brand isn't dead. They might be comatose in North America, but operations continue to hum in the EU. Melfi builds the Jeep Renegade and Fiat 500X. Both sell well. Alfa Romeo is growing and the brand has superior vehicles to the competition. Fiat is investing a lot in its Polish manufacturing operations including the GSE line and a future BEV. The Fiat 500 BEV will be marketed as a city car, intended for the EMEA region. It might replace the current 500e as a compliance car for California, but that's not guaranteed.
The next thing to wonder about is Fiat Professional. They have a huge chunk of the market in Europe, and their vans contribute a lot to the Ram brand here. Fiat production facilities also build LCVs for the competition. It is alleged that if the sales of Ram trucks and Fiat Professional were combined they would be number two globally.
Then there is the Dodge brand. The Dodge brand must die. NY high rollers don't like having the doors of their high end imports blown off by blue collar muscle cars. That is the real reason big time NY investors want to kill FCA by the death of a thousand cuts.
Fiat Chrysler should change its name, investor says
Should Fiat Chrysler Automobiles be called Jeep/Ram instead?
That's one piece of an investor's multi-part prescription, including spinning off Fiat to focus on North America, to boost the value of the Italian-American automaker.
But Adam Wyden's suggestions don't stop there. Wyden, of New York-based ADW Capital Management, says FCA should merge with Ford or General Motors, reflecting a long-stated pitch for industry consolidation by former FCA CEO Sergio Marchionne, who died this summer.
The suggestions came in a letter this week to the FCA board, which also recommended a spin-off of Alfa Romeo and Maserati and said FCA could expand its investor pool by issuing its financials using U.S. generally accepted accounting principles.
That's one piece of an investor's multi-part prescription, including spinning off Fiat to focus on North America, to boost the value of the Italian-American automaker.
But Adam Wyden's suggestions don't stop there. Wyden, of New York-based ADW Capital Management, says FCA should merge with Ford or General Motors, reflecting a long-stated pitch for industry consolidation by former FCA CEO Sergio Marchionne, who died this summer.
The suggestions came in a letter this week to the FCA board, which also recommended a spin-off of Alfa Romeo and Maserati and said FCA could expand its investor pool by issuing its financials using U.S. generally accepted accounting principles.
The Fiat brand has made some horrible mistakes in North America. Their footprint is getting smaller in the EU. Jeep and Ram can not go it alone or merged with GM and Ford as this one investors group imagines.
FCA needs to be whole. Maserati is the leading brand in for electrification, meaning they're getting most of the engineering attention for this technology. It doesn't make sense for another FCA brand to go after Tesla and the like. Besides, if all that is left is Ram and Jeep, which one should go after Tesla? Jeep is going to have plugins and EVs, but the cost and desirability for such vehicles will be a liability in the near term. Chrysler has the Pacifica PHEV, but if that brand goes away, so does that model.
The Fiat brand isn't dead. They might be comatose in North America, but operations continue to hum in the EU. Melfi builds the Jeep Renegade and Fiat 500X. Both sell well. Alfa Romeo is growing and the brand has superior vehicles to the competition. Fiat is investing a lot in its Polish manufacturing operations including the GSE line and a future BEV. The Fiat 500 BEV will be marketed as a city car, intended for the EMEA region. It might replace the current 500e as a compliance car for California, but that's not guaranteed.
The next thing to wonder about is Fiat Professional. They have a huge chunk of the market in Europe, and their vans contribute a lot to the Ram brand here. Fiat production facilities also build LCVs for the competition. It is alleged that if the sales of Ram trucks and Fiat Professional were combined they would be number two globally.
Then there is the Dodge brand. The Dodge brand must die. NY high rollers don't like having the doors of their high end imports blown off by blue collar muscle cars. That is the real reason big time NY investors want to kill FCA by the death of a thousand cuts.