Fiat-Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne remains convinced that the only way for an automaker to survive in the 21st century is to get bigger and work smarter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Three years ago, Marchionne predicted the global financial crisis would leave the world with six surviving global automakers and each would be building at least 6 million units a year. Since then, Fiat-Chrysler is the only major consolidation of automakers, but that hasn\u2019t caused the CEO to adjust his stance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI have not changed the sense of my prediction, but more important than the absolute number of cars, is the volume produced per architecture,\u201d he told Automotive News Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Given the level of investment it takes to develop a mass platform, he predicts a minimum volume of at least a million vehicles a year to achieve an adequate return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBy 2014, we expect Fiat-Chrysler to reach 5.9 million units and we will have just three main architectures that drive more than 80 percent of that total volume,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The integration of Fiat and Chrysler is at a crucial point \u2013 which also represents a cornerstone in Marchionne\u2019s career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI have never lived through a period with this level of complexity and this level of optionality,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
High hopes for Alfa, Jeep<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In his vision, Alfa Romeo and Jeep both have the DNA and the rich history capable to make them the alliance\u2019s two global brands. \u201cWe need to continue to globalize Jeep and Alfa, so the development of architectures and engines that are designed to support these two brands is crucial, and everything else becomes almost secondary,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While Alfa and Jeep have to grow to a global status, the Fiat brand is set remaining a full-line player in Europe and Latin America, while elsewhere it will compete with a family of models based on the 500 minicar, like Mini does for BMW.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Fiat 500 is a brand within a brand and so it is capable of expansion and declination in a way that effectively doesn\u2019t have to be associated with the rest of the Fiat offering elsewhere,\u201d Marchionne said. He added that he realized the appeal of Fiat as an international brand, given the way in which the markets have evolved, is limited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lacking love in Italy<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Asked why everything he does in Italy and for Italy receives more criticism than praise, Marchionne said that often people forget that Fiat was almost dead in 2004. \u201cWe survived the event \u2013 we are still here \u2013 on our own strength,\u201d the CEO said. \u201cI am not sure this fact made everybody happy \u2013 for whatever crazy reason.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fiat-Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne remains convinced that the only way for an automaker to survive in the 21st century is to get bigger and work smarter. Three years ago, Marchionne predicted the global financial crisis would leave the world with six surviving global automakers and each would be building at least 6 million units a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[137],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eafa-egypt.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eafa-egypt.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eafa-egypt.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eafa-egypt.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eafa-egypt.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eafa-egypt.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":373,"href":"https:\/\/eafa-egypt.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371\/revisions\/373"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eafa-egypt.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eafa-egypt.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eafa-egypt.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eafa-egypt.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}