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Analysts wary over FCA lawsuit but say emissions not as bad as VW

MILAN - Any potential fines Fiat Chrysler (FCA) may need to pay to settle a US civil lawsuit over diesel emissions will unlikely top $1 billion, analysts said, adding the case appeared less serious than at larger rival Volkswagen. The US government filed a civil lawsuit on Tuesday accusing FCA of illegally using software to bypass emission controls in 104,000 vehicles sold since 2014, which it said led to higher than allowable levels of nitrogen oxide (NOx) that are blamed for respiratory illnesses. FCA's shares dropped 16 percent in January when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) first raised the accusations, adding the carmaker could face a maximum fine of about $4.6 billion. The stock has been under pressure since. Volkswagen agreed to spend up to $25 billion in the United States to address claims from owners, environmental regulators, U.S. states and dealers. FCA, which sits on net debt of 5.1 billion euros ($5.70 billion), lacks VW's cash pile but analysts said its case looked much less severe. While VW admitted to intentionally cheating, Fiat Chrysler denies any wrongdoing. Authorities will have to prove that FCA's software constitutes a so-called "defeat device" and that it was fitted in the vehicles purposefully to bypass emission controls. Even if found guilty, the number of FCA vehicles targeted by the lawsuit is less than a fifth of those in the VW case. Applying calculations used in the German settlement, analysts estimate potential civil and criminal charges for Fiat Chrysler of around $800 million at most. Barclays has already cut its target price on the stock to take such a figure into account. Analysts also noted that FCA's vehicles are equipped with selective catalytic reduction (SCR) systems for cutting NOx emissions, so it is likely that any problem could be fixed through a software update. "Should this be the case, we estimate a total cost per vehicle of not more than around $100, i.e. around $10 million in aggregate," Evercore ISI analyst George Galliers said in a note. The estimates exclude any additional investments FCA may be asked to make in zero emissions vehicles infrastructure and awareness as was the case with VW. FCA said last week it would update the software in the vehicles in question, hoping it would alleviate the regulators' concern, but analysts said it may have been too little too late. The carmaker is also facing accusations over its diesel emissions in Europe.

Did Ram outsell Chevy Silverado for first time in history last month?

Recently released automotive March sales figures point to a major shakeup in the pickup world. Last month, Ram's trucks overtook the Chevrolet Silverado to become the second-best selling vehicle in the segment for the first time ever.
The Ram pickups outsold the Silverado by 285 units in March. Chrysler shifted 42,532 trucks for the month compared to 42,247 for the Chevrolet fullsize. According the Allpar, this is the first time either Dodge or Ram's pickups have outsold Chevy in a month, and the Bowtie has held down the second place spot in the pickup market since 1978 when Ford took over the top spot. The F-Series remains the market's king, with 70,940 sales in March and 173,358 sold since January.
The results may only be a blip. From January through March, Ram has sold 96,906 trucks versus 107,757 for the Silverado. One month of sales figures isn't enough to call this a trend, but it's certainly an interesting data point.

Ram 1200 small pickup rumored on its way to fight Ford Maverick

A report out of Brazil from Auto Segredos (translated), picked up by CarBuzz, claims the U.S. is going to get a baby Ram pickup. The outlet was part of a group of local car media speaking to Antonio Filosa, president of Stellantis South America. Filosa's big announcement was that there'd be a new Ram 1200 truck for our neighbors in the next hemisphere, part of a product onslaught involving 16 new models and 26 revised models over the next three years. The key Auto Segredos line for us is, "The pickup will also be sold in the American market to face the Ford Maverick." If it's true, then this is enormous news. Other details in the report leave us a touch cloudy on what such a pickup will look like for the American market, though. At one point, the AS article says the truck will be built on the Small Wide 4x4 platform used by Stellantis family products like the Jeep Renegade and Alfa Romeo Tonale. The architecture will be resized in Brazil "to be a medium-sized pickup" competing with the segment including the Chevrolet S10 (which is still on sale down there), Toyota Hilux, and Ford Ranger. Ram had a 1200 pickup on sale in the Middle East that was based on the Mitsubishi L200 and fought the Hilux and Ranger, but the Mitsu has always been body-on-frame and we'd wonder at Ram sending a cushy-riding pickup to battle hardcore work trucks. In the U.S., however, we're told the Ram 1200 would fight in the class below that, in the growing field of compact pickups dominated at the moment by the Ford Maverick. The most confusing bit: AS writes, "In the U.S., there are plans for the Ram 1200 to have a chassis-mounted version." The way the piece is translated, Brazil would be getting a midsized Ram unibody pickup to challenge midsized body-on-frame pickups while the U.S. would get a compact Ram body-on-frame pickup to compete against a compact unibody pickup. Something's either been lost in the Google translation, or Ram is truly operating in the fourth dimension if this comes to pass as we're reading it.