Tag Archives: Chrysler

Try to Buy a “Car”

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By Gary S. Vasilash

Let’s say that you are interested in buying a car.

A car as a sedan. Not a crossover. A bread-and-butter car. (Yes, maybe you want to add some spicy tomato jam to it—spoiler, alloy wheels, etc.)

You go to the local Ford dealer.

And discover that the only car is a Mustang, which doesn’t qualify (i.e., two doors).

There happens to be a Lincoln store across the parking lot.

There are no cars, only crossovers of stair-step sizes.

You visit a Chrysler dealership and learn that Stellantis has stopped production of its long-in-the-market 300 at the end of last year, but they’ve got a Pacifica minivan, if you’re interested.

Buick perhaps? Again, no. Only crossovers.

Over at Cadillac things are better: of its seven models, two are sedans, the CT4 and the CT5. Given that the Q1 2024 sales for those are down 36.1% and 34.2%, respectively, how long they’ll be around may be in some question.

Chevy? An impressive array of crossovers and trucks. And one car, the Malibu.

The point is, buying a car is not as easy as it once was.*

Which leads to a thought about electric vehicles.

What if you went into one of these dealerships and discovered that they didn’t have anything on the showroom floor that didn’t have a plug?

What if that was pretty much the case up and down the street of the auto mall?

Clearly there would be an increase in the number of EVs sold out of those dealerships.

Maybe the numbers would be that good.

But they would be better.

Just as they’ve increased the number of models that aren’t cars and so have made buying a car tough, it could be that to help recoup some of the billions being spent on EVs they make buying an ICE tough.

Something’s got to move more of that lithium-powered metal.

(Of the 593,997 vehicles GM sold to customers in Q1, 16,169 were EVs. Not much of a business case there. And it sold twice as many Malibus ((32,749).))

*Interestingly, the Asian and European brands, in general, all have cars in their lineups.

Jeep? Ram? Huh?

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By Gary S. Vasilash

The first half (H1) 2023 results for FCA US LLC—that part of Stellantis that is often referred to by the shorthand “Chrysler”—are out.

And look odd.

It is generally considered to be the case that the real U.S. crown jewels that the company based in the Netherlands obtained when Fiat and PSA merged were Jeep and Ram, the brands that don’t offer things that in any way, shape or form resemble cars.

For the U.S. sales for the first half of 2023 there is only one Jeep model that has actually had greater sales compared with H1 2022, the Compass. And arguably the Compass is, by and large, the least Jeep-like Jeep of all Jeeps in the showroom.

Wrangler sales are off by 15% and the Grand Cherokee is down 7%. Those two vehicles are essentially the bookends of the brand.

There was great hope for the Wagoneer and the considerably more expensive Grand Wagoneer, but they are off 21% and 26%, respectively.

An argument could be made that Jeep had the segment to itself for a long, long time and now things like the Bronco Sport and Bronco are taking away sales. Which could, indeed, be the case because for H1 Bronco Sport is up 7.8% and Bronco 6.8%.

Another thing might be that post-pandemic the whole “overlanding” phenomenon is waning and those who are more likely to use their Wranglers as Wranglers are still buying Wranglers and the rest have moved on to something else.

As for the Grand Cherokee, it is possible that some of its sales have gone to the Dodge Durango. Its sales for H1 are up 82%. Realize that there are plenty of dealerships that have Jeep, Ram, Chrysler, and Dodge under the same roof, so someone shopping could easily see a Durango and opt for it because, say, a Grand Cherokee with the sought configuration isn’t available.

Overall Jeep brand sales are off by 12% compared with the same period last year.

Meanwhile, over at Ram, it is only off 2%–but it would seem that it should be up.

For example, Ford truck sales are up 23.1%. GM also shows black ink for truck sales, with all flavors of Silverado being up 1.6% in H1 and the Sierra portfolio up 20.2%.

What is strange about the Ram numbers is that the Ram pickup is down 9% for H1 and the only reason why the brand isn’t down more is because the two commercial trucks on offer—the ProMaster Van and the ProMaster City—are both up, 50% for the Van and 70% for the City.

As for the other FCA US brands, that Durango has really boosted Dodge H1 results: up 31%.

Even Chrysler brand is up 23% thanks entirely to the Pacifica minivan, which is up 26%. The only other vehicle in the Chrysler showroom is the 300, which is (a) down 5% for H1. And given that for the first half there were 73,845 Pacificas sold and 7,197 300s. . .well, it makes one wonder about the on-going value of the Chrysler brand.

So maybe a few years from now that shorthand identifier for the company will be something else. But what that is isn’t entirely clear at this point.