2008 Chrysler Sebring Touring on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Chrysler investing $20M in Toledo plant to support 9-speed auto production

In 2011, Chrysler announced a $72-million investment in its Toledo Machining Plant to modernize production of the eight- and nine-speed torque-converters for automatic transmissions made there. That upgrade work won't be finished until Q3 of this year, but Chrysler has already announced a further $19.6-million investment to increase production capacity for the nine-speeders.
The extra units will be necessary because the nine-speed transmission they'll be mated to is going into three popular models: it will debut on the 2014 Jeep Cherokee, then go into the Chrysler 200 and Dodge Dart. The company predicted that this year alone it would sell 200,000 units equipped with the nine-speed tranny, and it is spending some $374 million in addition to the investment in Toledo to upgrade production capacity for it.
The work attached to this new investment won't begin until Q3 of 2014, and it will be finished by the end of that year. There's a press release below with all the details.

Fiat Chrysler's dealers and mechanics to reopen on Monday in Italy

MILAN — Fiat Chrysler said on Thursday its Italian network of approved dealers and mechanic workshops would reopen on May 4, when the country is set to start lifting a national lockdown put in place to limit the spread of the coronavirus. A package of health and safety measures for workers and clients will be put in place across the entire network to comply with the rules set by Rome to prepare for a staged restart of economic activities after weeks of national lockdown triggered by the virus outbreak. A vast majority of FCA's dealers and workshops in Italy are run by private operators, while the automaker directly operates some large ones in big cities. FCA this week resumed van production at its Atessa plant in central Italy and some operations in other Italian plants, including preparatory works at its Melfi facility for the final development of Jeep's new hybrid cars, and at Turin's Mirafiori plant for its new electric 500 small car. Related Video:

GM, Chrysler bailouts saved 2.6 million jobs

The Center for Automotive Research (CAR) has been studying the effects of the General Motors and Chrysler bailouts in 2009. Now that the US Treasury has officially sold off the rest of its stake in GM (and Chrysler has already paid back its loan), CAR has released its study on the effects of the bailout with this concluding note: "CAR is confident that in the years ahead, this peacetime intervention in the private sector by the US government will be seen as one of the most successful in US economic history."
Big words, for sure, but there's plenty of evidence to back up the claim. Bailing out GM alone saved 1.2-million jobs. If both GM and Chrysler hadn't been bailed out, US employment would have been reduced by 2.631-million jobs in 2009 and another 1.519-million jobs in 2010, according to the study. If both automakers were allowed to fail, personal income in the US would have decreased by $173.5 billion in 2009 and $110.9 billion in 2010. Instead, the study found that $284.4 billion of personal income was saved by the bailouts.