Mamma mia! Fiat’s order book looks “worse than in the beginning of 2009, when we were deep in the economic crisis,” said Sergio Marchionne. Cosa facciamo? Eccola: Fiat will close all of their Italian plants for two weeks, from February 22 to March 5, reports Das Autohaus.
That doesn’t bode well for the company. On Monday, they announced a net loss of €0.8b for 2009. Fiat said they won’t get back into the blacks unless European governments will extend the cash for clunkers etc programs. Which they won’t. They either have stopped them a while ago or are phasing them out.
If Fiat lost money in 2009, then they will have a really hard time in 2010 ff. CSM Worldwide thinks that European car sales will decline by 7.9 percent in 2010. Fiat was one of the top beneficiaries of European cash for clunker programs. In Abwrackpämien-addled Germany, Fiat’s sales skyrocketed 86.1 percent in 2009. All over Europe, Fiat’s group market share climbed from 8 percent in 2008 to 8,7 percent in 2009.
With Fiat closing down plants and preparing for massive losses in 2010, how much money do you think they have to get Chrysler going?
And they don’t even have a throttle recall problem.
Maybe they can give more technology to Chrysler and the government will credit them a few more billion. Just between friends.
We should start a pool to see which company disappears first, Saab or Chrysler? Let’s do this.
I second the proposal about the poll!
(and if more brands get into the poll, so much the better)
The definition of disappear would be needed.
Saab volumes are so low right now it would be hard to sell less and still claim they’re making any sales. Essentially they have disappeared already.
Chrysler is very present spending money with their hip cool funky fresh marketing mojo, but I can’t think of the last time I saw a cryco car on the road with new dealer tags. I’d classify Chrysler as more of an endangered species in serious peril of becoming extinct.
I’d like to see a poll where the TTAC rate the best and worst brands in general and maybe a separate one for the few non-viable businesses we all know aren’t going to be around post-election cycle.
Hang on “Fiat business is HORRIBILE”? or is that a pun on “automobile”? if it is it’s an awful one!
The translator droid in my Mac says “L’affare di Fiat è orribile.”
Would closing a few factories for a while cause a general strike in Italy ?
Chrysler is doomed… you heard it here first… or maybe not first. They’re toast anyway.
Oh well, down here they’re running at 100% capacity. And since this is their largest market. As always Brazil will keep Italy afloat. Big news. What they need to do is send most or all manufacturing capacity down south or east (as in Poland) and they’l do ok. Quastion is politics. Well i’m Latin so i’m well qualified to say this: Cry me a river.