Fiat loses $14k on every 500e

Someone should call him the waaambulance.

 

Quantities of scale I would imagine. I am guessing a good chunk of that cost is the new tooling and equipment required to electrify the Fiat and since they are so low quantity it very expensive per part.

So can we ask Fiat to give us $14K or threaten to buy one of their 500e's?

 

Dumb logic. He's going to loose a lot more per car if he doesn't sell any.

 

I wonder how much the ZEV Credits would cost in comparison. Just forgo the EV compliance vehicle and pay the fine.

Would you want to buy a car that the manufacturer says they don't even want to make? Future support? What about the engineering that went into it? It is not trivial to make a great EV. If your strategy is to just slap something together and moan about it the whole time, then you probably wont make the best decisions for the customer.

 

Simple, just "pull" Chrysler OUT of Caliprunia and be done with it...and his $14K loss per electric roller skate problem is solved (wink,wink)!

 

...I thought he was going to say the only reason Tesla makes money is the profit from ZEV credit trading. Part of the reason the Congress is supporting EV technology is to try to take leadership in this technology area. Tesla has obviously done that. I hope that Tesla success continues. But the Fiat statement does help answer one question: if EV prices are low because the costs are coming down as hoped, or its just that the autos are taking a loss on them. If that's the case it sheds some light on Toyota's FCV strategy, might as well take the R&D path less traveled.

 

I think the auto companies are factoring in the worth of the ZEV credits into the price. Then the federal and any state credits into the lease. Which helps lower any losses they are taking.

It seems FCA just doesn't have any interest in BEVs considering this and the release on the Chrysler minivans. Just being forced to do it could be enough reason to be against it.

 

hard to believe nissan is losing money on the leaf. bob, i think your last sentence says it all. have you ever driven a chrysler? i have had several from 1985 thru 2005, shame on me.

 

That, and regulatory and R&D cost spread over a small number of cars. Frankly I'm surprised it is not a whole lot more.

I agree with Bob, the token EV is the door charge to sell in California. Too bad really; I would much prefer a fleet MPG requirement with a built-in trading mechanism. When Americans say "my car's fuel economy is not TOO bad," it should mean 40 mpg combined and not the 28 or so today. That number should increase by 10% every 5 years.

 

^^^I think it's at 25 MPG in 2014 per UMich...I think that's all light duty vehicles

 

I definitely think they could be losing that much. They did work hard to try to get the car right.
2013 Fiat 500E EV First Drive – Review – Car and Driver

Now of course that does mean if you account for it as R&D, fiat could probably make a sucessful and profitable BEV or PHEV

Which probably means Mr. Marchionne doesn't want to continue with these cars, although some others at fiat obviously do.

 

I was talking about the MPG that Joe & Susy American consider "ok." It reflects their monthly out of pocket expenses for car fuel.

 

And in related news.......

Dodge announces new '600-plus' horsepower Challenger SRT Hellcat - Los Angeles Times

 

Around here 20mpg is considered "pretty good".

 

Remember that is for CARB I mean most of these beasts will probably sell in california.

 

I disagree. If he didn't build the 500e in the first place, then he could sell the gasoline 500 to a customer. I don't think we should have a negative view of companies saying, "We don't make profit on these things." Companies (and people in general) work to earn more money. If they end-up spending more on gasoline, rent, and other items than they earn, they will quit the losing proposition.

Someone said pull Fiat-Chrysler out of California:
That is certainly a possibility. When California eliminated TLEV cars in 2006 (making LEV-II the bare minimum), Volkswagen, Audi, and Mercedes removed diesel cars from the state saying, "We can make ULEV or SULEV diesels but California's fuel is still too dirty. The fuel would clog the catalysts and filters." - The three automakers returned in 2009 after California cleaned-up the fuel.

 

I'm very skeptical on that loss figure. A regular Fiat 500 sells for around that much. Is he implying the 500e costs more than twice what the gasoline one does? What is he using, NiAu batteries?!
Sillyness!

 

Sure he could, the rules say you need credits, you can make cars or buy credits. On one hand this makes sense if the goals are good, those like tesla will make cars, and other companies like honda buy them, because its cheaper than getting that fcv into the hands of customers. GM believes in phevs over bevs so last year they bought credits from tesla. Nissan sells them too. Now GM isn't anti-bev, its developing the spark ev, but they are behind. Who knows next year when the costs drop by using common battery cells with the volt (now they are using a different battery) they may make money at it.

Note Nissan, Tesla, and GM would be making plug-ins with or without CARB. The federal rules are the ones that really make these cars work. CARB rules do help with profitability of the S, leaf, and volt though.

Nothing says fiat needs to leave california, although the rules make california less profitable than it would be without the rules. It sounds more like there is a difference of opinion with-in fiat, where there are those that worked hard with bosch and think they made a great first gen bev car, and others like machione that would rather buy credits.