2013 Fiat 500 Abarth Cabrio Convertible 2-door 1.4l on 2040-cars

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Marchionne emailed Barra about merger between FCA and GM

Sergio Marchionne is adamant that global automakers will have to merge to remain profitable in the near future, and he'll tell that to anyone who's listening. Mary Barra, however, is not interested. According to The New York Times, the Fiat-Chrysler chief proposed a merger with General Motors via email to his counterpart back in March. Marchionne proposed meeting to discuss the matter, but Barra and her team reportedly rejected even entertaining the idea. This of course is not the first time Marchionne has raised the idea of a merger. He masterminded the marriage between Fiat and Chrysler, and reports have since suggested further mergers with Volkswagen, Peugeot, Ford, and others – including GM's own Opel unit. Some have taken his calls for consolidation as a weakness, but Marchionne insists that his empire is in good health – and that it's the industry as a whole which is in an untenable position. According to his view, automakers around the world need to align themselves into larger groups in order to reduce redundancy in investment, development and infrastructure – the duplication of which he terms as wasteful. "It's fundamentally immoral to allow for that waste to continue unchecked," said Marchionne to the Times. "I think it is absolutely clear that the amount of capital waste that's going on in this industry is something that certainly requires remedy," he said in a conference call with industry analysts late last month following the rejected GM approach. "A remedy in our view is through consolidation." News Source: The New York TimesImage Credit: Paul Sancya/AP Chrysler Fiat GM Sergio Marchionne merger fiat chrysler automobiles

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.

P. Diddy hosting Fiat 500L desert party

Fiat didn't run an advertisement during this year's Super Bowl. We've no idea why, though, because based on this recently released 60-second spot, the Italian brand probably could have done quite well during the big game.
The spot, called Mirage, stars Sean "Diddy" Combs (who happens to be the ex of former Fiat spokesperson Jennifer Lopez) and a pair of very unfortunate pedestrians. Wandering through the desert, the two are confronted by what they think are mirages before stumbling into a giant party hosted by the Grammy Award-winning rapper. It's a humorous spot, highlighting a product that Fiat really needs to succeed, the new 500L.
The Super Bowl-worthy ad is part of a larger campaign that will hopefully help distinguish the four-door L model from its smaller, two-door counterpart. "Too many people discover the 500L through the 500. That's what we have to solve for here," Jason Stoicevich, head of Fiat's brand in North America, told Automotive News. "It's awareness. We know it, we understand it and we had to find a creative way to deal with it."