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Stellantis sees vehicle loan durations extended amid banking turmoil

Stellantis is seeing clients seeking longer-term financing and leasing deals for their vehicles as a consequence of higher global interest rates, the carmaker's head for the business said. Chief Affiliates Officer Philippe de Rovira said loans which normally had a three-year maturity were now increasingly moved to four years. "This allows customers to get a car for a monthly instalment that is similar to that they had before," he said. The world's third largest carmaker by sales on Tuesday announced it had completed a plan announced in late 2021 to reshuffle and simplify its leasing and financing operations in Europe. Under its terms, Stellantis created a 50-50 single long term multi-brand leasing company named Leasys with Credit Agricole Consumer Finance. It also set up local joint ventures in European countries for its new Stellantis Financial Services unit, formerly Banque PSA Finance, with BNP Paribas Personal Finance and Santander Consumer Finance. "These banks have always had better funding conditions than those we can have as an automaker," de Rovira said. Benefits of the plan included cutting the number of financing and leasing entities the group runs in each country and the number of IT systems it uses, with expected savings exceeding 30% in this particular area, he added. De Rovira said the group had a huge portfolio of orders it had not yet delivered due to supply chain shortages impacting production. "Demand is not our main issue. The issue is to deliver as fast as we can cars that are in our order portfolio, which is still at record levels," he said. The group aims to expand its corporate leased vehicle fleet to more than one million units in 2026 and to double net income from its so-called banking activities to 5.8 billion euros ($6.3 billion) by 2030. De Rovira said Stellantis was not seeing a downward trend in vehicle pricing. "Probably the significant price increases we have seen in 2021 and 2022 will not be repeated because the context is changing, but for the moment we don't see decreases, we see stabilisation". ($1 = 0.9188 euros) (Reporting by Giulio Piovaccari and Gilles Guillaume; Editing by Jan Harvey) Earnings/Financials Plants/Manufacturing Alfa Romeo Chrysler Dodge Jeep RAM

2019 Ram 1500 eTorque First Drive Review | The un-hybrids

Misinformation is already being passed around about the 2019 Ram 1500 eTorque – reports calling the new electrified version of the full-size half-ton pickup truck a hybrid and saying its eTorque system adds torque to the truck's engine increasing payload, towing capacity, and performance. Don't believe a word of it – this isn't a hybrid in the conventional sense of the word. eTorque does not increase the truck's power or capability. Instead, the system feeds in some electric torque at low RPM, which helps with fuel efficiency by spinning up the engine during start/stop operation, smoothing gearchanges, and harvesting some energy from braking – that's basically it. Ram is partially to blame for the hybrid confusion. Although the "h"-word does not appear anywhere on the truck or the vehicle's window sticker, the automaker has chosen to call eTorque a "mild-hybrid system", which implies that it might be able to propel the truck on electric power. But the Ram's small battery pack and single electric motor cannot – it's more similar to the original GM Parallel Hybrid Truck system than the later two-motor, two-mode hybrid system circa 2009. Also, eTorque applies power to the engine and the wheels briefly at very low engine speeds and during gear changes. These applications of power only last for fractions of a second at any given time, some as quick as the blink of an eye. So it's a labeling fiasco, but Ram's explanation of the eTorque system's operation and its benefits, which are significant, can also be perplexing. And the resulting discombobulation is unfortunate, because eTorque is clever, and it really does work. Earlier this week we drove two Rams with the system, one a V6 and one a Hemi, through Kentucky horse country, and came away impressed by its measurable contributions to the truck's fuel efficiency, drivability and smooth operation. We also interviewed Mike Raymond, the Chief Engineer on the Ram 1500, and Brian Spohn, Ram's Vehicle Electrification Manager, Powertrain Engineering, to better understand what it is and how it functions. How eTorque works Ram will offer the 3.6-liter 24-valve V6 with eTorque as the standard engine in most models. The V6 will not be available without eTorque, although we'd be surprised if it wasn't added to the menu at a later date.

2021 Ram TRX to be revealed this summer

The wait for the 2021 Ram TRX will soon be over, FCA confirmed Thursday with a social media teaser. The much-anticipated, Hellcat-powered Raptor slayer will be revealed this summer.  This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Ram teased the unveiling on Twitter with a short video of the truck kicking up a massive desert dust cloud overlaid with the TRX badge and the caption, "It’s not a mirage." Make sure you enable sound, because the clip has audio, and you can hear the beating heart of the TRX — the same 6.2-liter supercharged V8 that powers FCA's Dodge Hellcat and Jeep Trackhawk models.  The engine sound in the clip lends credibility to a previous spy video purporting to show a group of TRX prototypes testing in Michigan's Silver Lake Sand Dunes.  This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. The link in the tweet leads to a microsite which replays the same short clip but offers no additional information, which tracks with the slow-drip approach Ram has taken with teasing out its new truck. Much of what we know (or believe to be true) has come from unconfirmed sources and spy shots, but Ram has acknowledged that the Hellcat powerplant will make more than 700 horsepower, rather than the 500-some-odd figure originally expected.  From the above shots, we can tell the TRX will sport bulging box flares (a la Raptor) front and rear. The hood appears to be equally bulging, good for highlighting the supercharged V8 underneath. The front bumper is similar to that of the Ram 1500 Rebel's with more raised sections in front of the tires to provide more clearance. Ram 1500 TRX View 18 Photos We get a solid look under the body, too. Still present are the extra beefy suspension control arms front and rear. Skid plates seem to line the whole underside down the middle. The tires were Goodyear Wrangler all-terrains, though it was difficult to make out the actual size. Previous spy photos have revealed remote-reservoir shocks. The wheels at each end are six-lug units, so it seems Ram isn't playing with a heavy-duty axle like a previous prototype suggested. Whatever the case may be, we should be no more than a couple of months away from getting the official details on Ram's new Raptor competitor.  Related Video: