The big Stellantis ‘Investor Day’ presentation just ended, and ‘platform utilization’ seems to be the most popular term as the company has to reposition itself from a company that was going to build a bunch of EVs to a company that doesn’t feel like it’s about to sink into the ocean.
I gotta say, Stellantis surprised me by announcing a lot of cars and giving us the names for said cars(Jeep Scrambler and Ram Dakota and Rampage), as well as a bunch of big curveballs and open questions. We’re all scrambling (pun!) to get those posts up, so you’re going to get a lot of Stellantis content this morning. What about Maserati? Believe it or not, Maserati will still exist.
Will Audi? Audi is taking it on the chin lately and it sounds like the current CEO is still in a lot of trouble as the Audi A4 gets more and more expensive. Also, what’s the European Ford Bronco going to be like? Probably a lot more like the Chinese Ford Bronco than the American Bronco Sport.
Chrysler Isn’t Dead Yet!
The big complaint from this website regarding the Chrysler brand has been that it’s just one freakin’ minivan. Guess who agrees? Longtime Chrysler/Stellantis/FCA brand boss Tim Kuniskis.
“Our plan for North America is very simple: get the product right–right for the market, right for the brand positioning, right for segment expansion, right for growth, and right for re-earning customer loyalty,” said Kuniskis earlier today.
While Chrysler is now just a regional brand, like Dodge, it’s the company’s most important region, so it isn’t being ignored.
“Can Chrysler be more than the minivan brand?” asked Kuniskis.
Here’s the answer, via Stellantis, about what’s coming from Chrysler. There will be three new crossovers and they’ll be affordable. The first one, which is probably going to be called the Airflow like the previously shown Airflow concept, will be built on the STLA One platform, and will be multi-energy (probably hyrbid and ICE, though possibly BEV as well).
The other two will be variants of one another based on “shared improvement platforms out of Europe.” Huh, what does that mean? Another slide gives us a little bit of a hint:
Basically, America will be getting a version of… something. Probably a Fiat or Peugeot platform. Maybe the same CMP platform that underpins the Peugeot 208 and 2008? I’m only guessing here, though there have reportedly been models shown to dealers. It’s also possible that it’ll be co-developed with Fiat or Peugeot and be STLA One-based.
Kuniskis did say that these are in the rare $25,000 cost space, where few compete anymore. It looks like the Arrow (by the way, can we believe they brought back that name? I love the callback) will come in two versions; clearly the Arrow will be the street version and the Arrow Cross will be some sort of either AWD or crossover. Actually, doing a 208 (hatch) and 2008 (crossover) version of the same platform is kind of a no-brainer, and something I’d love to see the company do.
Maserati Is Still Going To Be A Thing
The seemingly ignored and always rumored to be for sale Maserati brand isn’t dead yet, either!
“Maserati plays a very special role within Stellantis, as a pure luxury brand with a special customer and a unique legacy,” said Stellantis CEO Antonio Filosa. “Looking ahead we plan to strengthen the future with two new E-Segment vehicle.”
What that looks like to me is a large luxury SUV and a large luxury sedan, probably a new Quattroporte. That ain’t nothing!
Filosa then said that “we will come back to Maserati in December in the beautiful Modena.”
Ok, so that’s it for now.
The New Baby Bronco For Europe Is Probably More Like The Chinese Bronco, Which Isn’t A Bad Thing
If I were just a little smarter, I’d have put together the news that Ford was going to have a Baby Bronco for Europe with the reality that Ford already makes a cool Baby Bronco in China. Instead, I absolutely forgot to look at the invite for my Ford Bronco announcement I was attending the very next day and so thought maybe Ford was going to show me a Baby Bronco in America.
I literally walked all the way to the Filson store in Manhattan, got to the door, and realized I was a dummy and that, of course, Ford was showing a preview of the Ford Bronco Filson. That’s cool! I’m interested in the Bronco Filson. I just think if I’d have looked closer at the invite first I’d have not made the mental leap in my head.
So what is this European Bronco? Automotive News Europe has some more info:
“I can assure you that this Bronco will live up to its name. We will be truly authentic to what Bronco is,” Baumbick told Automotive News Europe in an interview.
The Bronco will be based on a Ford platform and will be “multi-energy,” which means at least a plug-in hybrid version, Baumbick said, without revealing if any other drivetrains would be available.
It’s likely that the Bronco will use the same C2 platform as Ford’s Kuga compact SUV, which offers all-wheel drive.
[…]
“I would say that the design constraints inspire innovation,” Baumbick said. “To bring what makes a Bronco a Bronco and marry that with multi-energy technology in a way that’s uniquely positioned and sized to win in the European market is an incredible opportunity for us,” he said.
Ok, got it.
The Redesigned Audi A4 e-Tron Is Already Reportedly Too Expensive
Whether fair or not, the knives are out for Audi CEO Gernot Döllner. The brand is in an impossibly difficult position, and while the company is working to fix that, the fixes might be adding to the problems, at least according to Manager Magazin.
The new electric A4 e-Tron platform was supposed to realize cost savings by being shared, but other parts of the company found it too expensive and decided not to adopt it. Why is it expensive?
[H]is critics say, Döllner is designing the model to be so expensive that it will not only miss internal profit targets but also have no chance in the market. Take, for example, the rear passenger compartment. To allow for comfortable seating in the back of the low-slung sedan, the A4—unlike its competitors from BMW and Mercedes—has a split battery. The battery modules are positioned differently; the car doesn’t use the “standardized cells” prepared for the group. To ensure crash safety, a stiffer frame is required. Within the company, they estimate the cost of this alone at around €2,000 extra per car. Added to this are the extra expenses for Döllner’s design preferences. The highly complex production process, it is said, ultimately costs about €1,000 more per vehicle than its competitors.
A report from January shows development costs for the A4 e-tron, including software expenses, of more than 4 billion euros; the total costs for the three Audi models on the platform are almost 10 billion.
It is a very big bet, especially for something that might not sell in China.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
It’s Skin Cancer Awareness Month and our friends at XPEL are celebrating with National Don’t Fry Day, so I’m going to do a week of beach songs. Today, it’s the Fresh Prince himself (and DJ Jazzy Jeff) with “Summertime.”
Observed annually on the Friday before Memorial Day, National Don’t Fry Day raises awareness about the dangers of ultraviolet (UV) radiation and promotes sun-safe habits as Americans head into summer. In recognition of the occasion, XPEL is offering 15% off automotive window tint installations at participating authorized dealers and company-owned stores across the U.S. on May 22 only.
The Big Question
What other famous Chrysler/Fiat/Pug/Citroën or any other Stellantis nameplate should come back?
Top photo: Stellantis
Crossfire!
What other famous Chrysler/Fiat/Pug/Citroën or any other Stellantis nameplate should come back?
Bring back Sunbeam. Hemi Tiger!
““Can Chrysler be more than the minivan brand?” asked Kuniskis.”
Wrong question. The correct question is “Why did Chrysler get neglected/starved to the point where it became a minivan-only brand?”
“What other famous Chrysler/Fiat/Pug/Citroën or any other Stellantis nameplate should come back?”
Well we should start with putting all Ram stuff back under Dodge. And offer at least one car. They talk about the GLH… but that should be the OMNI GLH. And that’s fine for a top-end version. But have a regular FWD or RWD Omni hatchback… maybe with a variant hybrid powertrain that is in the new Cherokee… with plug-in hybrid capability as an option.
Also put the Grand Caravan back under Dodge. Bring back a shorter regular Caravan.
And in general, lose the idea that Dodge is a muscle car/sports car brand. Have Dodge as a mass-market brand with a sporty leaning… with some performance models
And for Chrysler… bring the PT Cruiser back as an entry-level CUV. And give Chrysler a mid-sized and large SUV/CUV as well.
And bring back the Chrysler 300 as a more luxurious version of the electric Dodge Charger. And make a 2 door convertible version of the 300 and either call that the 300 convertible or call it the LeBaron or New Yorker or Sebring.
For their minivans, keep the Pacifica as the luxurious minivan and bring back the Voyager as a basic van… the basic van that was cheaper until Christine Fuel stupidly decided to add a bunch of equipment to it over the years to “improve” it and make it almost as expensive as the Pacifica making it pointless.
And lose the idea that Chrysler shouldn’t be a mass market brand. It should be the more luxurious mildly up-market counterpart to Dodge.
For Fiat, maybe a new 500X and a Multipla van.
Pug/Citroen don’t operate in North America… so I don’t know what models would be needed for them.
For Alfa Romeo… make a new ‘Fiata’ with Mazda… only it becomes the new Spider for Alfa Romeo.
For Jeep… nothing. They have all the models they need. If anything, Jeep has gotten too much attention in recent years. All Jeep needs are some tweaks… like fixing the manual transmission situation in the Wrangler and Gladiator.
And offer greater hybrid/plug-in hybrid powertrain availability. Also rename the wrongly-named “Wagoneer S” to a name more consistent with it’s size/segment… like “Cherokee Electric”
Fiat replaced the 500X with the new 600! I’m surprised they don’t import that to the US!
I applaud Chrysler for finally expanding its lineup a decade later than it really should have, but if they want to retain Chrysler solely for luxury and Dodge for performance, Stellantis should add yet another failing car brand under its wing for more pedestrian North American options: Plymouth 🙂
Well Plymouth had many decades of success. If you want to bring back a failing brand, bring back one that never had much success.
On that basis, I suggest Kaiser, Fraser, Kaiser-Fraser or Henry J.
“What other famous Chrysler/Fiat/Pug/Citroën or any other Stellantis nameplate should come back?”
Fire up the rebadge machine and bring back the Grand Caravan.
But which is the lesser evil to rebadge: the Pacifica or the Promaster City?
“I can assure you that this Bronco will live up to its name. We will be truly authentic to what Bronco is,” Baumbick told Automotive News Europe….
…It’s likely that the Bronco will use the same C2 platform as Ford’s Kuga compact SUV, which offers all-wheel drive.
Mm hmm, okay.
Do some old Plymouth name plates that were Chrysler in most of the world. Valiant, Duster. They could bring back some city names like Newport, or Saratoga. I always thought the new Yorker needed to be something that was commonly used as a cab. Cirrus is bland enough with very little recognition.
Belvidere.
Fury
Saw a Prowler yesterday, always a fun sight.
Could they bring it back?
That new Chrysler sedan looks like the lovechild of a Zeekr and a Polestar 2/4.
Which is not a bad thing.
Ok I take back everything I said about that Mercedes front end yesterday…at least it has some shape! What the heck is going on with the front end of that Audi? You know that ‘trick’ image where you either see a vase, or two human silhouettes? With the Audi I’m either seeing a
cute l’il button nosesurprisingly distracting camera bump or the grille of an electric razor.I thought I was looking at it’s ass until I looked closer.
No Imperial? No New Yorker? No big beefy boy sedan?! For SHAME. Chrysler, get your crap together.
It’s time to bring back brougham, baby. No one else is lookin’. The big, comfy-couch luxo-sedan market with trunks big enough for multiple bodies could be ALL YOU.
Also, goshdarnit, that A4 headline above that…thing…was a jumpscare I didn’t need when I was catching up on the news.
I’m with you. What is there even to aspire to in this world if not a brougham?
“It’s time to bring back brougham, baby. No one else is lookin’. The big, comfy-couch luxo-sedan market with trunks big enough for multiple bodies could be ALL YOU”
And what goes better with Brougham (aside of course from soft, rich Corinthian leather) than a whisper quiet, turbine smooth, all the torque RIGHT NOW electric drivetrain?
exactly
And don’t forget about the LeBaron and the 5th Avenue.
Chrysler New Yorker, or Newport (already mentioned) but it has to be done right, as close to a 1976 New Yorker as possible…an awesome comfy land yacht cruiser…I’ll take mine like Uncle Buck’s car backfiring and belching black smoke just for fun
I’m leaning towards the 1969 fuselage cars – but Yes.
I still have a weird fantasy about a restomodded sleeper ’81 Imperial Sinatra edition – though oddly my imagined soundtrack is “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head” which a Dean Martin song.
Desoto.
Emissions won’t allow for backfiring nor belching black smoke, sorry.
Would you settle for massive electrical discharges accompanied by deafining BZZZZTs?
I root for Chrysler as I own the van. It’s a good van!
Everything Stellantis offers here is so aggro, it seems there’s plenty of space to bring in something different, again, these could just be badge jobs from their Euro brands and that would be fine. They have plenty of small crossovers, why not take a few of those, make some tweaks and bring them on over? Make them look good and I think they could sell a reasonable number of them.
But please Stellantis, actually fucking put some marketing behind whatever these vehicles are, or nobody is going to have a clue they exist.
Hell yeah! I like that van!
I’m not holding my breath for a Chrysler Newport Convertible….
…but a great name for the new Maserati would be “Mexico”
To be honest, though, Chrysler carved out a very successful niche for themselves with affordable, non-sporty, FWD, 5 passenger convertibles. They were the last one standing in the category and made a mint off of it for decades until they walked away after half assing the final Sebring. Chrysler created that market out of nothing in the first place, they could certainly do it again
It was almost the same thing with the 300, big sedans were a dying category in the mid 2000s, then the 300 came out and all of a sudden, a moderately priced domestic brand sedan was desirable enough to be in rap videos
Chrysler Cirrus is ripe for a comeback among the Cloud-surfing set.
*flings door open*
PT Cruiser, anyone?
*ducks as everything not nailed down is immediately thrown at me*
Honestly, not a terrible idea. Chrysler actually needs a model that sort of tells us why the brand exists. Rarely does a minivan bring the “halo effect”. Yeah, neither does a PT Cruiser, but it would bring some sort of image back to the brand.
They might not sell a ton, but ANY excitement for the brand could rub off on the other models.
YES HA HA HA HA HA HA HA YESSSSSSS
Now arriving with factory chrome stick-on accents and a flame paint job
I pointed this out on the original Chinese Bronco post, but it’s not a “baby” Bronco. At 198″ long it’s nearly 10″ longer than the 4 door Bronco. We just see Bronco Sport design cues and assume it’s smaller, but it’s actually huge.
What other famous Chrysler/Fiat/Pug/Citroën or any other Stellantis nameplate should come back?
The 2CV!
Which, ironically, Chrysler themselves tried to bring back in the 90s, long before they were connected with Citroen
Chrysler: bring back the Laser and 300 nameplates
The last thing that Chrysler needs to do is jump in with a couple crossovers. The segment is too competitive. See and learn from the Hornet. They were more successful when they did things that were more unique in the market.
Bring back a new 300. There’s so little competition in the full size car market so there’s room for something unique.
Do a good mid-size car. Again, there’s not much competition here and no competition if someone wants to buy a mid-size car from an “American company”. Try to hit that mid 20’s for a mid size car and you’d probably have a winner. Give it more power than the competition.
From Westchester? Plus one for the commitment, but you could have hailed a Fisker instead.
I had already put two and two together on the European Bronco announcement as probably being the Chinese BEV/PHEV Bronco new energy but built in Europe to bypass some of the tariffs rather than a Jimny fighter on the previous posting. That’s the most logical thing other than it may be in addition to the next gen Sport.
If everything said in the Manager Magazin section on the A4 E-tron is true, that product is absolutely doomed, and Döllner will be out within 12 months of the launch of that car. VWAG has truly learned absolutely NOTHING from the EV upstarts eating their lunch.
Being thousands in the hole on manufacturing for improvements in rear seat comfort is the most asinine top-down micromanager BS I’ve heard in a long time, and I’ve read most of Matt’s recaps of Ford press conferences. This is the exact CEO vision driving everything mentality of Ferdinand Piech that led to VW falling behind in the market, but without any of the sound engineering to back it up. At least in the Mk4 VW era the cars were competitive and cost effective to make. In this case, this is aping the 1st-gen Panamera of “CEO says make rear seats nice, forget everything else” and compromising the car to the point of utter mockery.
The split battery pack is a great way to cut capacity, energy density, and range all down by 10-20%, adding complexity and cost of splitting BMS, HV Distribution, and more across more communication buses, and for what, a bit more headroom and legroom for back seats that will be occupied 5% of the time and at the cost of thousands? Genuine lunacy. This sort of myopic decision making will absolutely doom Audi and VW as a whole.
It’s abundantly clear that China doesn’t want foreign market vehicles, so all they are doing is tailoring this car to a market that wont want it, to be cost uncompetitive in the ones that do, and limit the flexibility of the platform it’s based on for future development. Audi lost it’s way a while ago, but his just proves that to an extreme degree.
The only interview I ever saw with Christine Feuell she had a designer handbag prominently in frame. I wonder if she left to not be associated with the cheap cars in the pipeline. I’m excited for someone to finally enter the affordable space even if I would never choose a Stellantis product because of poor history of reliability.
She also cancelled the production-ready Airflow because she didn’t like it and had them pivot to an alternate design at a very late stage, delaying new product by additional years. Also, the Halcyon was hyped up as a much-needed new model, only to be revealed as an obviously pie-in-the-sky show car very far away from being buildable, which meant it didn’t get the expected response from product-starved dealers
basically:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhQql-ZbZmg
The prices for the Chryslers are nice to see. The fact that they’re crossovers is ugh, but that’s the stupid market they have to play in, so I can’t blame them.
Well tough shit. That’s how it’s supposed to work: you get the obscene pay package ostensibly because you bear the responsibility for the brand.
I’m pretty sure a 14 year old child could do the jobs of most CEOs.
I’m not convinced a 14-year old boy isn’t doing the job of some CEOs.
I’m not convinced that some CEOs aren’t 14 year old boys.
(See “Big”)
Big was cheeky and fun. But the reality is cruel and tragic.