A top Chrysler LLC executive says the automaker should be viable by springtime because of its restructuring, introduction of new and improved vehicles, and higher sales due to loosened credit and sweetened incentives for buyers.
Vice chairman and president Jim Press defined “viable” as remaining solvent and continuing to invest in new products, with an ability in the future to repay government loans.
But he told reporters on Saturday at the National Automobile Dealers Association annual convention that he doesn’t know when the privately owned Auburn Hills, Michigan-based company will return to profitability.
Press said Chrysler can be viable if the US light vehicle market shrinks from last year’s 13.2 million in sales to just over 10 million. As recently as 2007, the market exceeded 16 million.
The struggling Chrysler has received US$4 billion in government loans so far to hold off bankruptcy, and it expects to get US$3 billion more after it files a viability plan with the government by Feb. 17. Without the loan money, its executives have said it would run out of cash.
Press told reporters that the country was living off loose credit and fast spending for years, and a correction probably is good. But that means automakers have to be prepared to make it on sales that are far lower than in previous years.
“Good business people will see this as normal and calibrate ourselves and our organizations as if today was the way life is going to be,” Press said. “We shouldn’t bank on some of these easy monies.”
He said Chrysler’s retail market share through Thursday was 10.1 percent, the highest it’s been in recent months. Sales, he said, have been better than last month, and a normal seasonal uptick in March, April and May should help Chrysler become viable, he said.
Chrysler’s sales were down 30 percent last year compared with 2007, and they were off 53 percent last month. The poor showing led several industry analysts to predict the company could not make it through this year without a merger, alliance or some other combination.
Last week Chrysler announced a nonbinding preliminary deal for Fiat Group SpA to take a 35 percent stake in Chrysler in exchange for small-car and small-engine technology that will help Chrysler bring smaller, more fuel-efficient models to market faster.
But it could take two years for the Fiat products to arrive in the US, which is Chrysler’s primary market. Fiat is not putting any cash into the deal.
Chrysler employs about 66,000 people worldwide, with the bulk of them in the US.
Chrysler on Thursday announced employee pricing, plus an incentive, plus low-interest loans to help move its vehicles.
Chrysler shut down all 30 of its factories for much of last month and this month, but all plants will be back on line as of today, Press said.
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic gas stations are to fall NT$0.2 and NT$0.1 per liter respectively this week, even though international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices continued rising last week, as the US Energy Information Administration reported a larger-than-expected drop in US commercial crude oil inventories, CPC said in a statement. Based on the company’s floating oil price formula, the cost of crude oil rose 2.38 percent last week from a week earlier, it said. News that US President Donald Trump plans a “secondary