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Fiat Chrysler Automobiles gets officially official this Sunday

Want a chunk of the new Fiat Chrysler Automobiles? Shares of the newly joined (technically) Dutch automaker will begin trading on Monday on the New York Stock Exchange. The company itself will become a single entity on Sunday.
According to The Detroit Free Press, the new FCA will be the world's seventh largest company after Fiat shareholders' chance to oppose the merger expired on October 4. To prevent the merger, shareholders would have needed to exchange at least 500 million euros in shares for cash.
On Monday, current shareholders of both Fiat and Chrysler stock will see their shares converted into an equal number of FCA shares, the Freep reports.

Investors want answers about Marchionne’s final days

The mystery of Sergio Marchionne's surprise death last week continues, with investors now questioning the timeliness of disclosures by the company and family. Bloomberg reports that Italy's market regulator is making a routine check into how Fiat Chrysler handled communications regarding his illness. Fiat Chrysler's stock is down 12 percent in both Italy and on the New York Stock Exchange since the announcement of Marchionne's death. University Hospital Zurich last week issued a statement saying that Marchionne, who died July 25 while recovering from an unspecified should surgery, had been treated for more than a year for a serious illness that it didn't define. Marchionne's family told Reuters the companies hadn't been aware of his health conditions. The Italian business website Lettera 43 reported July 5, and FCA later confirmed, that Marchionne had undergone shoulder surgery in a Swiss hospital. But the company later denied a July 20 report by the website that Fiat Chairman John Elkann planned to meet with company leaders to divide Marchionne's responsibilities. Yet the FCA board indeed met on July 21 and chose Mike Manley, who had formerly overseen the Jeep and Ram brands, to succeed Marchionne as CEO. The company on July 25 published a brief statement acknowledging the former CEO's death. "Unfortunately, what we feared has come to pass. Sergio Marchionne, man and friend, is gone," Elkann said in the statement. Marchionne told no one outside his inner circle — reportedly not even Elkann — that he was seriously ill. His partner, Manuela Battezzato, who works in Fiat's press department, told Bloomberg that Marchionne's family didn't tell the company about his health condition. The famously hard-working CEO, who had quit smoking about a year ago, had also reportedly stopped responding to messages and calls from some advisors since the end of June. People close to him told Bloomberg that Marchionne died from complications following the shoulder surgery, including two cardiac arrests. Image Credit: Ferrari flags hang at half-staff at the Hungarian Grand Prix / Getty Chrysler Fiat Sergio Marchionne

Next-generation Fiat 500e EV will be all new at 2020 Geneva Motor Show

Fiat's electrified European future begins with the next-generation 500e coming to the 2020 Geneva Motor Show. Maintaining the overall proportions of the current car, everything under the skin will be new, starting with the EV platform. This is the same architecture that would propel a potential production version of the "Affordable But Cool" Centoventi concept that Fiat brought to this year's Geneva Motor Show. Fiat- Chrysler marketing boss Olivier Francois described the new 500e as, "A new 500, totally renewed. A new object. Totally electric. It's kind of an urban Tesla, with beautiful style. Italianess, dolce vita in an electric car. It's the polar opposite of Centoventi." We doubt the Centoventi concept's battery arrangement will debut in the 500e, but that would be cool. The show car's modular battery concept could run for 62 miles on its integrated unit, but more batteries could be added — including one under the seat — for 310 miles of range. Instead, we'd expect Fiat to shoot for something like the Peugeot e-208, which gets a WLTP-rated 211 miles of range. The Italian carmaker doesn't sell the 500e in Europe. Fiat's starting its electric push there with the new 500e because it wants to enter the market at the low end of pricing. That segment is also where the brand happens to be strongest; Autocar wrote that the 500 and Fiat Panda account for a third of the city car market. Since the new Fiat 500 arrived 12 years ago, more than 2 million have been sold in Europe alone. Although an Italian buyer can purchase a Fiat 500 Pop for 14,350 euros (about $16,300), Francois said the average transaction price is 24,000 euros ($27,250). The competition in the urban EV segment sells for around 32,000 euros, leaving Fiat room to make a digestible price jump from what buyers pay now for ICE versions. More competition is on the way, too, with Mini's electric Cooper coming this year, and Honda's rocking little Urban EV soon. Fiat takes an intermediate step later in 2019 when a 500 with a mild hybrid system goes on sale. That model employs a 12-volt belt-driven starter-generator. The current 500 with internal combustion will continue alongside the electric variant with stylistic and technical updates. The coming 500e platform, developed at FCA, is called the City Car powertrain.