With the merger between FCA and PSA solidified, the two companies are now focusing on the details of their new relationship. The new entity is already sketching out broad plans for their future vehicles. Part of that plan will see about 66 percent of their respective lineups on just two platforms. The other third might be a tougher, but far from impossible, nut to crack.
By 2030, expect models like the Jeep Compass, Renegade, and Fiat 500X to sit on a PSA platform. That won’t be a huge departure from the norm, because all three crossovers already sit on a similar architecture. The trio will likely migrate to the CMP platform. It’s specifically designed for vehicles on the smaller end of the compact segment. The Citroen DS 3 Crossback, pictured above, currently utilizes the platform. PSA engineered the platform to accommodate gasoline, diesel, and electric powertrains.
Larger vehicles like the Jeep Cherokee and Dodge Journey are natural candidates for the EMP2 platform. Like its smaller counterpart, it can accommodate diesel, gasoline, and electric drivetrains. The mid-size Peugeot 508 currently uses the platform. Each platform is expected to underpin about three million vehicles each.
The vehicles that won’t use those platforms are pretty much all trucks and utility vehicles. Jeep and Ram have their own separate body-on-frame platforms. And the Jeep Grand Cherokee and Dodge Durango still use the unibody platform that’s loosely related to some older models from Mercedes. The Dodge Challenger, Charger, and 300 are still on their own platform too. Rumors suggest the next generation Grand Cherokee will utilize Alpha’s Giorgio platform, which currently underpins the Giulia and Stelvio. It would make sense for every future rear-wheel drive unibody vehicle to share the same platform, but no one even knows if FCA’s full-size cars will survive another generation.
PSA CEO Carlos Tavares has repeatedly stated that no plants or jobs are at risk. But using only two platforms practically guarantees future redundancies. The Jeep Cherokee and Chrysler Pacifica already sit on the same platform and both models each have their own factory. Is that really necessary? And will FCA’s full-size cars be axed because of their unique needs? We’ll probably found out within the next several years.
Too many brands under one umbrella. Which will be killed off……and how long will it take?
I’d suggest immediately folding Ram back under Dodge (and DS under Citroen). They’ll need at least one historically-American miscellaneous-car brand, unless they want to try a Jeep Pacifica, but not both Chrysler and Dodge.
Lancia is down to one aging model sold only in Italy. No-brainer.
Vauxhall’s been a zombie nameplate with no independence or originality for 40 years, its’ continued existence makes no sense at this point other than cost of doing a full relaunch of Opel in the UK, but they could just start shipping cars there with a blitz instead of a griffin and see what happens.
The toy-and-model licensing operation may need to do a full inventory of just how many historic brands they control, probably more than anyone else.
We have been getting cars like that here for a long time if anyone actually looked my sister bought a Holden Vectra years ago Holdens only contribution was the badge it had a Opel ag plate on on side of the radiator support panel and Vauxhall motors Ellesmere the other, Jeep could vanish altogether out here for all it matters most FCA brands have little traction in the market place and where I live we have a dealership plus a Peugeot Citroen dealer, Peugeots are common Citroens not so much and spending all day in traffic I do get to see what people are driving.I saw a road test on the new Vauxhall/Opel Corsa recently its a rebadged Peugeot 206 but with differences to be noticeable.
“The toy-and-model licensing operation may need to do a full inventory of just how many historic brands they control, probably more than anyone else.”
Indeed, the amount of brands PSA-FCA have had a hand in is staggering. The list so far:
Abarth (Italy)
Aixam (France)
ALFA/Alfa Romeo (Italy)
American Motors/AMC (USA)
Autobianchi (Italy)
Calcott (UK)
Chalmers (USA)
Chenard-Walcker (France)
Chrysler (USA)
Citroën (France)
Clément-Bayard (France)
Coventry Premier (UK)
Darracq (France)
De Soto (USA)
Delaugère et Clayette (France)
Dodge (USA)
DS (France)
Eagle (USA)
Essex (USA)
Fiat (Italy)
FNM (Brazil)
Frazer (USA)
FSM (Poland)
Graham-Paige/Graham (USA)
Henry J (USA)
Hillman (UK)
Hudson (USA)
Humber (UK)
Imperial (USA)
Innocenti (Italy)
Itala (Italy)
Jeep (USA)
Jeffery (USA)
Jewett (USA)
Kaiser (USA)
Lancia (Italy)
Maserati (Italy)
Mathis (France)
Maxwell (USA)
Mega (France)
Mors (France)
Nash (USA)
O.M. (Italy)
Opel (Germany)
Overland (USA)
Paige (USA)
Panhard/Panhard et Levassor (France)
Peugeot (France)
Plymouth (USA)
Rambler (USA)
Russell (Canada)
Simca (France)
Singer (UK)
SRT (USA)
Stearns-Knight (USA)
Sunbeam (UK)
Sunbeam-Talbot (UK)
Talbot (UK/France)
Valiant (USA)
Vauxhall (UK)
Vulcan (UK)
Willys (USA)
Zastava/Yugo (Serbia)
Zust (Italy)
And that’s not counting the truck/commercial branches, nor their involvement in various communist block/China companies.
How soon can we expect to see the new Stearns-Knight…?
Wow, encyclopedic knowledge.
Don’t forget the Allstate! (CC here)
Vauxhall disappearing for Opel? Unlikely. Outside of brand purists nobody cares or even knows Vauxhall as a real brand has long ceased to exist. That badge however – and it really is only the badge – brings in many more customers than a foreign brand would. Why throw that away? The Vauxhall badges cannot really be that expensive to make.
If the speculation about the new Explorer platform being planned for a future F Series truck (at least 1/2 ton F150) is correct, I could see PSA/FCA doing something similar for Wrangler, Grand Cherokee and RAM, plus possibly a Euro-branded vehicle (a van?). It may even be BOF though I think with proper design and marketing a unibody Wrangler could work just fine. Perhaps a unibody with some visible frame rail-like stampings to reinforce suspension mounts and load areas, but mostly to make it look like it’s got a ladder frame.
I didn’t say a future F series truck will share a platform with the new RWD Explorer. Ford’s F series will undoubtedly stay BOF for the foreseeable future.
I said that Ford is sharing the longitudinal RWD-oriented drive train (engine and transmission) between these two, for obvious cost savings.
Thanks for the correction, I guess I conflated longitudinal RWD power train with the entire platform. Though I still think a unibody Wrangler (think XJ Cherokee) would be a good idea, I suppose moving the vans over to RWD would destroy their big space efficiency advantage over Transit and Sprinter.
I cannot confirm or deny this,
but where did you get all those information? After going through a whole lot of internal documents, I still have no clue!
Is anyone here concerned that this company seems to be making plans to put most of the lineup on mid priced European chassis’? And is there one flavor of vehicle that has had more trouble than any other getting traction in the US market?
I agree that success in other markets is necessary, but isn’t Ram and Jeep paying the bills right now?
Technically the LX chassis (Charger, Magnum, 300, Challenger) and Jeep Grand Cherokee, Dodge Durango, Jeep Cherokee, Chrysler Voyager, Chrysler Pacifica, and Jeep Renegade are in theory “European Chassis.” I don’t see an issue for FCA going forward. If anything, it will be a benefit because France and Europe are more likely to subsidize chassis development for electric and other alternative powered cars than the USA is currently. The chassis really is not a failure point in determining reliability. As long as FCA keeps its 3.6 V6 and 8 speed auto combo they can make just about any chassis “reliable” in the broadest terms.
Fortunately, that combination of powertrain is as reliable as it can get, which is great ( also, 5.7 V8 combination ), however these days here comes a bigger problem:
Chassis CAN bus. I’m still trying to figure out how the new Explorer works in terms of CAN bus, but given my past experience on GM and Chrysler products, some vehicles are a miracle if they run at all! ( GM Global B first used by Alpha cars, that’s a nightmare I can never forget. FCA KL, as smoothly as they run now, I still don’t understand why those types of CAN bus is such a big mess like a glitchy, 90s racing game with many errors once you try to do anything differently )
What are you talking about? CAN is CAN. there are a few variants (single wire, two wire, 11-bit, 29 bit, and now FD) but it’s not magic. Everyone has been using CAN in some form for almost 15 years now.
CAN FD is almost a nightmare. So much for CAN FD on GM T1 SUVs
still don’t know what the F you’re complaining about.
If the chassis, suspension and seat quality of the French vehicles can be matched with American reliability & longevity; then this will be one hale of a match.
I see 3 or 4 platforms as follows:
-Platform A: provided by FCA for Ram full size trucks (1500, 2500, etc). This platform generates significant cash flow, so can afford its own platform. Focused more on North America.
-Platform B : provided by FCA or PSA for Large Vans (Fiat Ducato, Dodge Pro Master, Peugeot Boxer, etc). Economy of scale will come from multiple brands using the same underpinnings. Flexible enough to be produced in NA, SA, Euro, and Asia at the same time.
-Platform C: provided by FCA for all of Jeep (small to midsize), and SUVs for the rest (FIAT, Chrysler, Dodge, etc) and city vans (Doblò, ProMaster City, etc). Enough economy of scale to build in various markets around the world. Could be used to support a mid-sized truck like the Honda Ridgeline as well as a mini-van.
-Platform D: provided by PSA for all sedans, wagons, small SUVs, etc. Platform flexible enough for NA, SA, Euro, and Asia.
Platforms A & B would focus on Hybrid where as C & D would migrate to total EV as time elapsed.
As for the brands:
-Vauxhall and Opel fade into the past as their GM underpinnings expire.
-Peugeot becomes the dominate name in Europe, SA, and Asia.
-DS fades with Vauxhall and Opel. Too much effort to support.
-Chrysler/Dodge/Ram regulated to NA.
-Jeep is a world brand
-FIAT fades into the background. Not enough margin to support.
In other words, the French dominate the combined company. With Sergio Marchionne’s passing that’s not surprising.
Peugeot turns out to be the durable one. How about that?
“But using only two platforms practically guarantees future redundancies.”
I’m not sure I get why this is being stated as a sure thing. “Platform” development is usually not a distinct/separate activity. The “platform” is developed by the people working on the lead vehicle program to use it, and there will still be the same product teams developing other vehicles using that platform.
God, does it get tiresome to hear some shiny CEO heading up a merger say that no jobs will go. Historically, it’s practically never right.
And in this case, it’s a bald-faced lie. The new PSA-FCA will have excess capacity of SIX MILLION vehicles!
From a cold-assed business perspective, if Tavares didn’t get rid of plants and people, he’d actually be failing in his duty to shareholders.
Funnily enough, such geniuses never seem to have themselves slated for termination, sorry, permanent human resource non-contributing outplacement – well, not without obscene bags of cash attached.
The new PSA-FCA will have excess capacity of SIX MILLION vehicles!
Source(s)? I’ve not heard that.
The reality is that this is not quite like you’re painting it to be. It’s pretty much essential and inevitable. Massive scale, especially to spread out the cost of new technology (EVs, etc.) is what it’s going to take to survive. PSA and FCA both have their weaknesses, and this merger will go some distance to offset them.
PSA CEO Carlos Tavares is probably the brightest CEO in the industry currently. He turned PSA around, which had been struggling, and now it has one of the highest profit margins in the industry. And he then bought Opel and made it profitable within a year or so.
If anyone can make this merger work, it will be him.
Oh, I agree about necessity. It’s PR lies that get to me, that and the vast over-compensation of CEO’s today. A strong and canny – but decent – leader would have the ability to say, “Reality is that efficiencies will affect people, but I either lose 30K jobs or 450K when the entire company goes down.” Not “no jobs lost”. Making PSA profitable is admirable (and Opel a small miracle!) but it’s long way from somehow finding buyers to fill all that excess.
The source was a French pay TV channel.
https://www.euronews.com/2019/11/05/european-factories-at-risk-in-peugeot-fiat-merger
Carlos Tavares is an interesting car guy (Wikipedia). “He has been an amateur race car driver since the age of twenty-two. He has competed in the Rallye Monte-Carlo Historique. He also collects classic cars and owns a 1979 Peugeot 504 V6 Coupé, a 1976 Alpine A110 and a Porsche 912 from 1966. He had a career as a rally driver until the early 1990s.”
I’m surprised that no one here has mentioned the “Jeep Curse.”
It seems that whoever owns the rights to produce the “Jeep” make, ends up having financial difficulties and going out-of-business (while managing to make a profit selling Jeeps, but having their other product lines suffer). Willys-Overland, Kaiser and American Motors all went under and Chrysler seems to have struggled pretty much ever since they added Jeep to their lineup. Daimler-Benz seemed to be aware of the curse and turned around and dumped Chrysler fairly quickly.
Damiler WAS The Curse of Chrysler Co. Chrysler was profitable at the point of that merger and Bob Lutz and others were strongly against the merger. But don’t let facts get in the way of your Pro-Euro Socialist Agenda.
If the Daimler Chrysler Merger never happened there is a possibility that Chrysler may have owned GM after its Bankruptcy instead of both companies needing to be bailed out by Uncle Sam.
The Jeep curse is a fun thing to joke about, but realistically it has been a life preserver brand for each company that owned them. Chrysler of course rebounded by 1987 but it was a mere 7 years since the company was on the brink of being shuttered, and it was no sure thing sans the “Jeep curse”, and avoiding the Daimler merger the company would have remained 90s healthy up to 2008.
Jeep had managed to retain a constant appeal in the market since WWII and it was like winning the lotto jackpot for unsteady car companies where one or two bad decisions could otherwise sink them financially. And we all know the stories of lottery winners blowing through their winnings immediately.
I heard of that “Jeep curse” too and one poster at Allpar forums once mentionned then the only one who could break the Jeep curse is GM.
I guess Peugeot by acquiring some of GM’s DNA (Opel/Vauxhall) might try to break that curse.
It was hardly a curse; a blessing actually.
Willys Overland would have almost certainly not survived the war without Jeep, as their passenger cars were duds. And W-O got over $60 million (a lot of money then) by selling itself to Kaiser.
Kaiser did very well with Jeep, which they bought when their K-F cars were essentially dead already. It saved their bacon, and gave Kaiser a new lease on life.
And of course AMC got a huge boost from Jeep; they would never have lasted as long as they did without it.
And Chrysler got a huge boost from Jeep, and it’s quite possible/likely that they might not have been bailed out in 2009 without Jeep, which was then the one bright spot in the company.
The Jeep blessing has worked miracles for quite a few companies.
Interesting that you mention the success of Jeep as a reason why Chrysler received its 2009 bailout when GM was forced to shutter Hummer by the same government. My opinion is that Chrysler would have received its bailout with or without Jeep.
At the time, Chrysler was owned by Cerberus which was essentially there to gradually suffocate Chrysler little by little until there was nothing left to do but shut it all down. It was a twenty year plan. That is the trick, slow and gradual decline so as to not alarm Wall Street or Regulators. Similar to what has happened to Sears, Kmart, and other companies owned by these venture capital types.
The economic crash actually helped Chrysler in that it lead to the dissolution of the Cerberus ownership. It is interesting that when the government spends its own money it does not like giving it to venture capitalists but has no problem with venture capitalists in the private sector.
Anyway, the reason I believe Chrysler was bailed out is because
1. UAW votes and leverage on the Democratic Party in particular.
2. The impact of Chrysler closing would have had on the Rust Belt/”Hillary’s Fire Wall” of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, etc.
3. Nobody else was interested in owning Chrysler at that point in time. Fiat purchased Chrysler over the course of six years or so while simultaneously keeping getting it healthy and off of ICU Life Support.
Had the economic crash happened ten years earlier there would have been a line of buyers for Chrysler (staring with Mitsubishi for obvious reasons) because of Jeep, LH, and the Minivans. Had the crash happened ten years later, I believe that Hyundai would have been interested in purchasing Chrysler for RAM and Jeep. However, at the point in time of 2009 nothing Chrysler had was particularly innovative anymore including minivans and Hyundai was still trying to grow its core brand.
Fiat saw Chrysler as an easy way back into the US Market regardless of the brand value of Chrysler Co at the time. It was purely a marriage of convenience for Fiat and for Chrysler. Hopefully FCA and PSA marry for love this time but time will tell.
Hummer was the poster child for American waste and excess and had zero chance of survival being merely yet another GM brand using essentially badge engineering.
Jeep on the other hand, while not autonomous or self-sufficient, was a portfolio of products that had and still has tremendous worldwide name recognition, historic value, a positive image, and a distinct subset of products not essentially the same as other brands under the same umbrella.
It’s clear why one was shuttered and one was not.
Relative to your first numbered point: The bailout process started under G.W.Bush.
Perhaps GWB wanted McCain to lose. He did not exactly campaign for the “Maverick.” Not that it would have mattered either way. Trump was smart to wait until 2016 to run.
Hummer was working on more fuel efficient SUV’s. Not that they were going to be the next Prius but I think 21st century GM would have been better off with Hummer and without Cadillac. Not because Cadillac doesn’t have value but because GM cannot manage Cadillac to the maximize its brand value.
Say what you will about Hummer, but the brand was managed correctly from a marketing perspective. You knew exactly what it was and who it was for. Can’t say that about much of anything coming from GM these days except Corvette.
“The bailout process started under G.W.Bush.”
Don’t bother him with reality. People like him will blame Obama for everything bad that happened since the year 2001.
jz,
The majority of Congressional and Senate Republicans were both against the auto bailout. Bush used TARP Funds for the bailout uni-laterally. One person at the absolute end of his political career does not a political party make. Which is also why no one that supports MAGA pays attention to any speech critical of MAGA by any Bush Jeb, George, and any of the others. MAGA did more for the working class in three years then either Bush did in twelve.
Jim,
GMC was and is the definition of “Badge Engineered Chevy Trucks” research how much drivetrain, chassis, and suspension work was done to each GM Chassis in order to build a Hummer. If badge engineering was the issue that you are making it out to be either GMC or Chevy Trucks should have been eliminated in 2009.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., complained in a written statement about the Senate killing the “bipartisan” compromise that the House had worked out with the Bush Administration, and called on President Bush to use money from the $700 billion financial-services industry bailout to help the U.S. automakers. That would require an unlikely about-face by the Bush Administration.
“The consequences of the Senate Republicans’ failure to act could be devastating to our economy, detrimental to workers, and destructive to the American automobile industry unless the President immediately directs (U.S. Treasury) Secretary Paulson to explore other short-term financial assistance options, including TARP (the Troubled Asset Relief Program) and those available to the Federal Reserve,” Pelosi said.
“That is the only viable option available at this time,” she said.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/senate-kills-proposed-auto-industry-bailout/
https://www.politico.com/story/2008/12/bush-announces-174-billion-auto-bailout-016740
At the time, Chrysler was owned by Cerberus which was essentially there to gradually suffocate Chrysler little by little until there was nothing left to do but shut it all down. It was a twenty year plan.
You lost me right there. No need to read the rest of your comment.
What chassis or engine or model or transmission was developed and released by Chrysler Co. under Cerberus ownership that wasn’t in process when Daimler filed for Divorce?
What plans were there to develop future product under Cerberus Ownership?
Maybe I missed something during those years.
Cerberus owned Chrysler for less than two years. They got it for nothing, and were obviously hoping that the economy would eventually turn up, as would Chrysler sales. That never happened, once the impact of the 2008 financial crisis set in.
I’m hardly defending Cerberus, as they clearly were in over their heads, and on top of that, the economy tanked. My point is that they certainly didn’t go in with the intention of “suffocating Chrysler”. What’s the point in that? What private equity firm buys a company with a plan to kill it?
Paul,
Pretty much most private equity firms buy companies to liquidate assets and kill them, eventually. There are many articles and news reports on this, you can start with this one which provides links to several others. Or google “private equity destroy” and research from there. Sorry to be such a downer beginning the new year.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bje7zm/this-invisible-industry-might-be-the-worst-thing-about-late-capitalism
James, That’s a gross simplification. Sure that happens sometimes, but many times not. The real and obvious goal of private equity is to make money by improving the acquired company’s profit, and then eventually selling it to the next…private equity firm, or another company, or going public.
If the company has large real estate holdings, like Kmart, Sears, and other retail companies, then yes, liquidating the real estate can be a way to make money from that acquisition, as the real estate is typically worth far more than the actual company as a going concern.
But that certainly doesn’t work for a car maker. What’s there to sell, in a rapidly declining car company? Nothing. As GM and Chrysler found out, right? No private company was willing to take them on in 2009, as debtors in possession. Which is why the government had to step in, as the only option to shutting them down, certainly in the case of Chrysler.
The same thing would have happened to Chrysler regardless of who owned them in 2009; the were moribund, and had been for quite some time.
The real reason Eaton agreed to “merge” with Daimler is because he already could see Chrysler’s inevitable decline within a few years. He knew the best years were already over. Warranty costs were exploding, because all of their products were brittle, due to cost cutting in development and parts quality. Chrysler was a dead man walking going back quite some years.
Car companies have no value in liquidation. Who wants a bunch of empty plants? They sit for years, even decades. The industry had massive over-capacity. There was zero demand for car factories at the time. Nobody wanted anyhting Chrysler had, except Marchionne, if he could get a killer deal like he did.
Cerberus made a bad decision to take on Chrysler. And they knew it very soon. It was a declining company in a declining business climate. Private equity is about the batting average, and in this case, they struck out. They were never going to be able to turn it around. So they abandoned ship.
As a former owner of three Peugeot 504s, I wouldn’t mind having a car built on a Peugeot platform, whatever the badge.