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Dodge Durango SRT is much cheaper than Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT

Dodge has finally announced availability and pricing for the 475-horsepower Dodge Durango SRT. The Detroit-built SUV will start at $64,090 and hit dealer lots toward the end of the year. It's not a cheap SUV by any means, but you get a lot for the money: including 470 pound-feet of torque, and all-wheel-drive. Plus it has three rows of seats and can tow 8,600 pounds. Not only that, but it's basically the best performance SUV deal from the Fiat-Chrysler group. The Grand Cherokee SRT, with the same engine, costs almost $4,000 more at $67,990. The Durango SRT outperforms the Grand Cherokee in several key areas, too. It's 0.4 seconds quicker to 60 mph and manages to break into the 12s in the quarter-mile whereas the Grand Cherokee is stuck in the mid-13-second range. The Durango can also tow an extra 1,400 pounds, has an extra row of seats, and has more maximum cargo space with the seats. So unless you just really love the Jeep look and brand, the Durango SRT seems like the logical choice. And if either still isn't potent enough, just wait for the upcoming Grand Cherokee Trackhawk. Regardless of your choice of SRT vehicle, you'll still come away with a really powerful SUV, as well as a day of instruction at the Bob Bondurant driving school in Arizona. Related Video: Featured Gallery 2018 Dodge Durango SRT View 32 Photos Image Credit: Dodge Dodge Crossover SUV Performance

FCA is setting a five-year strategy: Here's how the last one played out

We're slightly more than four years removed from Sergio Marchionne last five-year plan for FCA, a tell-all where the Italian-American automaker divulged its plans for the 2014 through 2018 model years. It was a grand affair, where Sergio told FCA investors that all was right in Auburn Hills, Alfa Romeo and Maserati were making comebacks, and the fifth-gen Dodge Viper received a mid-cycle refresh. You can read every last one of those past predictions right here. We're on our way to Europe to see Sergio's sequel, coming out Friday straight from FCA's Italian headquarters. (Bloomberg reports a plan to expand Jeep and Ram globally, combine Alfa Romeo and Maserati into a single division for an eventual spinoff, and downsizing Fiat and Chrysler. Also, EVs.) But before we arrive in Italy and find out exactly what Marchionne has planned for 2019 through 2023 as his last act as CEO, let's take a minute to tally up the results of his last term based on the same scoresheet we used in 2014. Now, we're only five months into 2018, so much of this — including vehicles like the Ram HD and Jeep Grand Wagoneer — could still debut this year. For those, we'll mark things TBD. We're not going to draw any conclusions or make any objectionable remarks. We're simply going to let the stats speak for themselves.

The UAW's 'record contract' hinges on pensions, battery plants

DETROIT - After nearly four weeks of disruptive strikes and hard bargaining, the United Auto Workers and the Detroit Three automakers have edged closer to a deal that could offer record-setting wage gains for nearly 150,000 U.S. workers. General Motors, Ford Motor and Chrysler parent Stellantis have all agreed to raise base wages by between 20% and 23% over a four-year deal, according to union and company statements. Ford and Stellantis have agreed to reinstate cost-of-living adjustments, or COLA. The companies have offered to boost pay for temporary workers and give them a faster path to full-time, full-wage status. All three have proposed slashing the time it takes a new hire to get to the top UAW pay rate. The progress in contract talks follows the first-ever simultaneous strike by the UAW against Detroit's Big Three automakers. The union began the strike on Sept. 15 in hopes of forcing a better deal from each major automaker. But coming close to a deal is not the same thing as reaching a deal. Big obstacles remain on at least two major UAW demands: restoring the retirement security provided by pre-2007 defined benefit pension plans, and covering present and future joint- venture electric vehicle battery plants under the union's master contracts with the automakers. On retirement, none of the automakers has agreed to restore pre-2007 defined-benefit pension plans for workers hired after 2007. Doing so could force the automakers to again burden their balance sheets with multibillion-dollar liabilities. GM and the former Chrysler unloaded most of those liabilities in their 2009 bankruptcies. The union and automakers have explored an approach to providing more income security by offering annuities as an investment option in their company-sponsored 401(k) savings plans, people familiar with the discussions said. Stellantis referred to an annuity option as part of a more generous 401(k) proposal on Sept. 22. Annuities or similar instruments could give UAW retirees assurance of fixed, predictable payouts less dependent on stock market ups and downs, experts said. Recent changes in federal law have removed obstacles to including annuities as a feature of corporate 401(k) plans, said Olivia Mitchell, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School and an expert on pensions and retirement. "Retirees want a way to be assured they won't run out of money," Mitchell said.