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Filed under: SUVs , Government/Legal , Hirings/Firings/Layoffs , Chrysler, LLC. , Jeep , Renault , Rumormill The latest rumors regarding Cerberus-owned Chrysler and its possible sale point to the breakup of Chrysler's assets, and in particular its brands. General Motors may be interested in bits and pieces of its cross-town rival, but perhaps not the entire automaker. Jeep is considered Chrysler's most valuable asset and was purchased by the automaker from Renault in the '80s, around the same time that AMC ceased to exist. A similar scenario may put Jeep back in the hands of Renaul t . This purchase could allow the French automaker an easier entry back into the U.S. market with dealerships and excess production capacity leftover from Chrysler. General Motors main interests are rumored to be the minivan line along with some production sites, including the plant in Mexico that assembles Dodge Ram trucks. In exchange for the pieces of Chrysler that GM is interested in, the automaker...
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Filed under: Hybrids/Alternative , Minivans/MPVs , Sports/GTs , SUVs , Green , Chrysler, LLC. , Dodge , Jeep CNBC's Phil Lebeau got a sneak peek at the new EVs Chrysler is developing, and it looks like Auburn Hills is pulling a Tesla, among other things. The yellow Dodge EV you see here is basically an electrified Lotus Europa. With lithium ion battery power, it's reportedly got an operating range of 150 - 200 miles and can be plugged in to household 110 or 220 outlets. Figure a four-hour charge on the latter, and 8 or so on the former. Zero-to-sixty is said to be under 5 seconds. Like we said, this is basically Chrysler's Tesla, right down to the Lotus-sourced donor vehicle. We'll see the Dodge EV introduced formally later this afternoon, along with range-extended EV versions of the Chrysler Town & Country (can you say, "killer app"?) and Jeep Wrangler. With regard to timing, Chrysler says it would like to have "at least one" of these vehicles on...
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Filed under: Car Buying , SUVs , Chrysler, LLC. , Dodge , Jeep , Earnings/Financials The automotive sales sector is in a major state of flux as consumers continue to run from SUVs and pickup trucks into smaller, more fuel efficient cars. One manufacturer hit especially hard by this transition is Chrysler, a company that recently posted the worst fleet average fuel economy numbers of all major automakers in the U.S. due to its truck-heavy lineup. Still, the automaker has built up a large supply of Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep utility vehicles that they have got to get off dealer lots somehow. To ease consumers into the fuel-thirsy utes, Chrysler has introduced new incentives of zero-percent financing for 72 months on the 2008 Dodge Durango, Chrysler Aspen and Jeep Grand Cherokee and Commander. While the lack of any financing charges will certainly impact the bottom line, it is nothing compared to the losses the automaker has been hit with over its past lease deals. In fact, truck and SUV residuals...
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Filed under: Trends , Minivans/MPVs , SUVs , Hirings/Firings/Layoffs , Plants/Manufacturing , Chrysler, LLC. , Dodge , Jeep , Earnings/Financials Click above high-res gallery of the 2008 Dodge Grand Caravan SXT Now that General Motors and Ford have completely abandoned the minivan market for good, the American originator of the species faces only Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Kia and soon Volkswagen as manufacturers that also offer competitive choices. Perhaps you'd think that Chrysler would be benefiting as the only domestic automaker currently playing in the segment, but it seems that sales are down this year by 13 percent for the Chrysler Town and Country while the Dodge Grand Caravan is down an alarming 35 percent. High gas prices are the obvious reason why the minivan market is seeing such a harsh downward trend, and likely the culprit behind Chrysler's impending move to idle its St. Louis South minivan plant as early as December, which would leave some 1,500 employees jobless. Utility...
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Filed under: Car Buying , Hybrids/Alternative , SUVs , Green , Chrysler , Dodge Click above for high-res gallery of Chrysler's hybrid SUVs Apparently hoping to avoid the ignominious fate of the full-size hybrid SUVs from two-mode hybrid partner General Motors, Chrysler is getting aggressive with the pricing of its new Durango and Aspen hybrids. At launch this fall, the Chryslers will be stickered at 45,340 and $45,570 respectively, some $8,000 below the four-wheel-drive versions from GM. GM recently had to slap $4,000 cash on the hood to entice customers to check out the Tahoe Hybrid and Yukon Hybrid. Unlike GM, however, Chrysler has chosen not to offer a two-wheel-drive variant of its hybrid SUVs. At this point we still don't know how equipment levels will compare between the GM and Chrysler models, so it's hard to do a direct comparison of these high-mpg hybrid SUVs. The last time we talked to Chrysler about the hybrids, they were not planning to implement any of the weight...
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Filed under: Hybrids/Alternative , SUVs , Green , Plants/Manufacturing , Chrysler Last month, a major announcement was made regarding an effort between Nissan and Chrysler to share products. Specifically, Nissan will build a small car for Chrysler and receive a large truck in return. It seems as if the Pentastar brand could use some more help when it comes to offering the types of vehicles that the public wants as quickly as possible. To that end, Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli says, "If we can have similar arrangements ... and it makes financial sense and supports our dealer network relative to what customers are telling them they want, we're going to go do it." What customers want is fuel efficient vehicles, something which Chrysler is not exactly well positioned with at the moment. In related news, Nardelli also mentions that Chrysler sees hybrids and electric cars as the most viable options moving forward to reduce emissions and fuel consumption. The first hybrid vehicles from...
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Filed under: Car Buying , SUVs , Plants/Manufacturing , Chrysler , Dodge , Jeep Click above for a high-res gallery of the 2009 Dodge Journey Making a step towards a more fuel-efficient vehicle lineup, and reducing the number of overlapping vehicles between its brands, the plug has been pulled on a Chrysler-branded version of the 2009 Dodge Journey . Chrysler LLC will instead focus the resources on a Nissan-manufactured compact car. While the automaker currently captures the bulk of its sales from light trucks and SUVs, Chrysler is trying to pare down its lineup significantly to cut costs. So far, they have cut four models. Moving forward, the Jeep Commander SUV is expected to be dropped next year, and the company has already said they were canceling the PT Cruiser Convertible . While the 2009 Dodge lineup gains the aforementioned Journey, Dodge Challenger , and a redesigned Dodge Ram pickup, Chrysler's product lineup for the next twelve months looks particularly bleak with nothing significantly...
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Filed under: SUVs , Chrysler , Jeep , Rumormill According to Bloomberg, the demise of the Jeep Commander is but a year away. Anonymous sources inside Chrysler told the news service that with a 43-percent decline this year, which follows declines every year since its first full year on the market, the Commander is surrendering its command. The SUV's end was claimed to be due to gas prices, since a V8 Commander averages about 17 MPG. However, exorbitant (for America) gas prices haven't killed a number of other vehicles that don't even do that well, so that reasoning makes us wonder. What makes more sense is that in addition to the sales plunge, the Commander was stealing an unexpectedly high number of sales from the Grand Cherokee. In a cozy pool, every little bit of water counts. If it's true, we have to admit we're sorry the Commander is going away. Some people have taken its boxy simplicity for blah-what-boredom, but it was just the kind of Jeep we like: straightforward...
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Filed under: Car Buying , SUVs , Crossovers/CUVs , Chrysler , Dodge , Jeep It's no secret that Chrysler has some overlapping models in its lineup. Case(s)-in-point: it's hard to make a rational argument that Jeep should be offering both the Compass and Patriot (not to mention Dodge selling the Patriot's platform sibling, the Caliber) or the Grand Cherokee and the Commander. The Chrysler Aspen and Dodge Durango barely pretend to be different vehicles and there's no reason to sell both the Jeep Liberty and Dodge Nitro when they're basically the same machine. This revelation is as obvious to Chrysler's new management as it is to us, and Chrysler President Jim Press, says as much. "We're going to stop overlapping, we're going to bring everything under one roof. By doing that we will have more products in the markets we are not covering." Also marked as redundant by Press are the Chrysler Town and Country and Dodge Caravan minivans, but as easy as it...
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Filed under: SUVs , Plants/Manufacturing , Chrysler , Dodge , Jeep The Jeep Grand Cherokee is already past due for a full redesign and if Chrysler can hang in their long enough, a new one should debut in time for the 2011 model year. The privately-owned automaker has announced its intention to put $281 million in new tooling into the Jefferson North assembly plant in Detroit that produces the Grand Cherokee and Commander. The perenially slow-selling Commander is expected to get the chop as the latest new Chrysler pares down its redundant model lineup. However, that doesn't mean that the Grand Cherokee, the sales of which once supported three production shifts at Jefferson, will be alone. One of the plants that Chrysler previously announced would be shuttered is the Newark Delaware facility that builds the Durango and Aspen. One or both (more likely one) of those models will likely end up using the same platform as the Grand Cherokee and be coming off the Detroit line. When production...
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Filed under: SUVs , Crossovers/CUVs , Chrysler , Jeep Click image for a gallery of the 2007 Jeep Compass While everyone's waiting for Chrysler to fix the interiors of the Chrysler Sebring and Dodge Avenger, Cerberus has made a surprise decision to spruce up the Jeep side of the house first. Both the Compass and Patriot are getting freshened interiors, and not a moment too soon. While we haven't driven the Compass (which would benefit from a flamethrower to the exterior as well), we've spent some time with the Patriot, which shares its sibling's exceptionally unexceptional cabin appointments. Hard, cheap-looking, plastic abounds, and attention to detail is uneven at best. For example, there's all kinds of flash left on trim elements like the individual slats in the HVAC vents, and apparently, Chrysler expects the front seat occupants to supply their own padding for the granite-hard armrests. Overall, it's a resounding disappointment inside, which is unfortunate because...
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Filed under: Concept Cars , Detroit Auto Show , Economy , Sedans/Saloons , Sports/GTs , SUVs , Green , Chrysler , Dodge , Jeep Click image for a hi-res gallery of Chrysler's concepts We're back from the Chrysler press conference that saw the Detroit Auto Show debuts of the Jeep Renegade , Dodge ZEO , and Chrysler ecoVoyager . As we have mentioned already, each is born out of the automaker's ENVI program, the focus of which is on new, environmentally-friendly electric propulsion. As such, all the concepts share the same 200 kw (268 hp equivalent) electric motor powered by a currently nonexistent lithium-ion battery pack and augmented by a secondary "range-extender" in the Renegade and ecoVoyager. That includes a vaporware fuel-cell in the latter. It's all okay, though, because as Chrysler's Frank Klegon pointed out, these are "pure concepts." He then went on to say that these "pure concepts" would be seen "in future production vehicles...
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Filed under: Concept Cars , Detroit Auto Show , Hybrids/Alternative , SUVs , Green , Chrysler , Jeep Click image for high-res gallery Chrysler is showing three concepts that leverage the automaker's ENVI electric vehicle tech tech today in Detroit. The Chrysler ccoVoyager and Dodge ZEO concepts will be covered in separate posts, but they share their main electric drivetrains with Jeep's open-air concept. At the center of ENVI is a 200 kW (268 hp) electric motor with a 40 mile range that's powered by lithium ion batteries. The Renegade concept uses a pair of these -- one on each axle to create a proper 4X4 -- and adds a low gear mode, locking differentials, and a Bluetec diesel "range-extender" engine that gives it the equivalent of 110 mpg when combined with the electric motors. We see a little of the 1998 Jeepster Concept in the Renegade's front end, but beyond that, the little two-seater goes its own way, putting a modern spin on the Wrangler ethos that incorporates...
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Filed under: Minivans/MPVs , SUVs , Trucks/Pickups , Plants/Manufacturing , Chrysler , Dodge , Jeep , UAW/Unions The 2009 Dodge Ram can't come soon enough. Chrysler, along with GM and Ford , will be turning out the lights in its Warren Truck Assembly Plant for a few weeks as of this month. The Jefferson North Assembly and Windsor Assembly plants will also be shut down. The Warren plant that assembles the Dodge Ram and Dakota pickups will be closed the longest, from December 21 to February 4. Jefferson North, which builds the Jeep Grand Cherokee and Commander SUVs, will close for three weeks as of January 4, 2008. That plant will also lose 911 workers, and will lose its second shift as of February 4. The Windsor plant, in Ontario, Canada, which builds the Chrysler Town & Country and Dodge Grand Caravan minivans, will go silent on January 14 for two weeks. The acronym to describe it is "volume-related downtime," which is yet another painful step that needs to be taken to...
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Filed under: SUVs , Recalls/TSBs , Jeep Those of you rolling in a new 2007 or 2008 Jeep Commander or Grand Cherokee, take note. Chrysler is recalling 28,755 vehicles due to front-brake calipers made out of gray iron, instead of ductile iron, which could...
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