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For some, getting a Fiat 500e last week was almost free

Auto-racing clubs know a thing or two about moving fast. And a couple of them out in California appeared to do just that when a bunch of incentives for the Fiat 500e electric vehicle added up to a pretty sweet deal. Actually, a borderline free one. Green Car Reports was kind enough to do the math on the calculation of an $83-a-month, three-year lease deal on that included a $2,100 perk and required an $11,000 downpayment on the $32,000 car. California and federal government incentives for EVs cut that downpayment down to $1,000 out of pocket once the incentives ($7,500 from the feds, $2,500 from the state) were factored in by the leasing company. Then, Fiat-Chrysler was throwing in another $1,000 for folks who were leasing a car from another car company, hence the freebie. That means some lucky people, at least temporarily, were able to work basically a zero-downpayment agreement for a three-year lease on a car whose monthly payment is the equivalent of about two full tanks of gas. Once word of those perks got around to some California racing clubs, about 100 500e vehicles to be moved off of California lots during the past week or so. Plugged in, indeed. Related Videos: Featured Gallery 2013 Fiat 500e: Review View 40 Photos News Source: Green Car Reports Green Chrysler Fiat incentives fiat 500e

Marchionne completed Fiat-Chrysler deal from a Florida beach

Sergio Marchionne is the CEO of Fiat, which as you may have heard, has finally worked up a deal to finish acquiring the Chrysler Group after months of bargaining with the United Auto Workers and its VEBA healthcare trust, which owned just over 40 percent of the American brand. Where was Marchionne when the deal was finally hammered out? Well, not tucked away in a frigid Detroit board room until the wee hours of the morning.
Nope, one of the largest deals in automotive history was reportedly hammered out on the beach - at the home of a banker, in the Florida resort town of Vero Beach. Marchionne traveled to the home of Alain Lebec, a senior managing director at Brock Capital LLC, one of the advisory companies for the VEBA fund, where both sides met to make final arrangements in the $4.35-billion exchange. The location of the final deal, though, is nearly as remarkable as the pace with which it came about.
According to anonymous sources pinned down by Automotive News Europe, before the meeting, the two sides were meeting in Detroit as recently as December 19, which is where Fiat made one of its final revised offers. Naturally, the VEBA made a counter offer, which led Marchionne to initiate the Vero Beach meeting.

Hundreds of Detroit residents line up to ride in autonomous cars

DETROIT — Members of the public got the chance Friday to take a free ride in a self-driving vehicle as part of an effort to clear up confusion about the technology. Hundreds signed up for the 6-minute journey that led riders through a course set up inside a Detroit convention center. Mary Van Der Maas heard about the opportunity on the radio and decided to give it a shot. The 73-year-old retiree from Grosse Pointe, Michigan, hopped into an autonomous Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivan, and off she went. "I think that it's just ignorance that keeps us from wanting to do this. And once you experience it, it's marvelous," she said afterward. Daniel Schroeder, 17, said he "thought it was interesting how the car knew its route." "And then it could identify things in the road," said the high school junior from Troy, Michigan, who spent one of the days of his spring break at the demo inside Cobo Hall downtown. Rep. Debbie Dingell also rode in the driverless Pacifica, asking more than a few questions of organizers along the way. "Public confidence in autonomous vehicles has decreased, not increased, over the last year for a variety of reasons," the Democratic congresswoman said. "And people need to get to know it. They need to be hands-on. They need to see that it works." Dingell said she had asked her husband, the late John Dingell, the longest-serving member of Congress in the institution's history, to serve as an advocate for driverless cars, citing the technology's potential to benefit older Americans. "He just quite frankly didn't trust it," Debbie Dingell said. Technological hurdles and apprehension have limited attempts to deploy fully autonomous vehicles on public roadways. Uber pulled its self-driving cars out of Arizona last year after one of the ride-hailing service's autonomous cars struck and killed a woman as she crossed the street. Mary Moore of SAE International, an association of mobility engineers, said the idea behind the Detroit event is to "use the facts, use what's on the market today to explain what the capabilities are today and then also give a glimpse into what can happen in the future." The event was sponsored by SAE International as well as Partners for Automated Vehicle Education, a coalition of industry, nonprofit and academic institutions whose goal is to inform and educate the public and policymakers about automated vehicles. It runs through Sunday and is free to attend.