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Marchionne (FIAT CEO) to American people: "Please don't buy the electric 500"

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I knew that Marchionne (FIAT CEO) was against electric cars but now he is really exaggerating! He is asking to American people not to buy the electric 500! :scared:

Fca, Marchionne agli americani: - Il Fatto Quotidiano

IMO even if FIAT is not making money with the electric 500 Marchionne should consider the benefits that FIAT is getting from the electric 500 in terms of technical experience in the field of EV, PR aspects and so on.

Unluckily this is the kind of executives that we have in Italy.

(The linked article is in Italian, but you can easily translate it in English thanks to Google)
 
Maybe they should try building an electric car that is worth buying.

I own one and it is absolutely worth buying in its current form, if what you want is an electric city car. It has the same BEV range as an i3 for $15K less. It is more stylish. It looks better than a Leaf and has more range. It is highly maneuverable and fun to drive.

I question whether Fiat loses $14K on each one since its MSRP is about $16K more than an ICE 500 and I doubt the electric drive train costs them $30K more than the ICE drivetrain. Maybe Marchionne is amortizing the program's R&D cost over the small number of units they expect to sell since that are treating it as a compliance car sold in limited geographies.
 
I own one and it is absolutely worth buying in its current form, if what you want is an electric city car. It has the same BEV range as an i3 for $15K less. It is more stylish. It looks better than a Leaf and has more range. It is highly maneuverable and fun to drive.

I question whether Fiat loses $14K on each one since its MSRP is about $16K more than an ICE 500 and I doubt the electric drive train costs them $30K more than the ICE drivetrain. Maybe Marchionne is amortizing the program's R&D cost over the small number of units they expect to sell since that are treating it as a compliance car sold in limited geographies.

Fiat did not do any engineering for the Fiat 500e drivetrain. It was all subcontracted out to Bosch.

And he placed a very small order.

When you do that the per unit cost can get expensive.
 
Maybe they should try building an electric car that is worth buying.

Well, they did. The FIAT 500e is a wonderful car. My wife got one--the first car she has ever loved. She loves it as much as I love my Roadster. It gets lots of comments when she parks it around town and it was a big hit at Earth Day and Plug In America day here in Santa Barbara.

Marchionne just has his head where the sun don't shine!
 
Fiat did not do any engineering for the Fiat 500e drivetrain. It was all subcontracted out to Bosch.
And he placed a very small order.
When you do that the per unit cost can get expensive.

Good point.

Clearly Fiat has no interest in EVs. The 500e is strictly a compliance car.

In 5 years Fiat is going to regret their lack of inhouse EV expertise.
 
Maybe Marchionne is not able to read/understand numbers.
I'll plot a graph for him:
auto-vendute-circolanti-italia.PNG

Data from
 
Marchionne impressed with Tesla

Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne met with Tesla, Apple CEOs

It seems that SM may be changing his mind on the subject.

He gets my respect for not following BMW dubious line of "We deny any collaboration with Tesla" and "We deny collaboration on Apple car"

Here is SM on Tesla:

SMEM.JPG


May I add most people are more than impressed, we are also grateful, but some (will not name names) feel the need to keep denying. Fragile egos need preservation.

SM on meeting Tim Cook:

SMTC.JPG