I agree -- keeping Dart and 200 in production couldn't cost too much in the grand scheme of things considering the huge investments at Belvidere and Sterling Heights in the last 5 years.
However, if the best result for FCA comes from outsourcing, I guess I am OK with it to an extent. I just don't want to become super reliant on SUVs and light duty truck in the event we have a huge spike in gas prices in the future. If all small- and mid-size cars are cut they just can't be brought back in the snap of a finger if market conditions change.
If going outside FCA for small cars is the way to go, Sergio needs to find a partner who will build a car that is not currently available here in the US. This will be the hardest part, because who would FCA partner with? There's Peugeot, but with most other OEMs you will be running into exsiting alliances.
A natural choice would be Mitsubishi, but even their smallest offerings are available here, and the small-midsize option -- the Lancer -- isn't even close to class competitive.
Or perhaps Dart and 200 just stay in production but are built by a contract manufactuer like AM General in the US, Valmet in Finland or Magna Steyr in Austria. That would make sense, but it isn't a cheap plan. The only major contract manufacturing job in the last few years has been Daimler hooking up with AM General in Indiana to put the R-Class back in production for export to the Chinese market.
Back when smaller manufacturers were still around this was pretty commong. Saab had the 9-3 convertible built in Finland (1st generation) and Austria (2nd and 3rd generation) since the main line in Sweden was't flexible enough to build all 9-3 sedans, 9-5 sedans and 9-3 convertibles.
Again, in the volume that FCA will need I would guess that this would be more expensive than just keeping Belvidere or SHAP working as usual?
|