Chrysler News
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While automakers selling cars in North America have been happy to accept the 2025 Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards, the same can't be said for similar plans in Mexico. Last month we described how Toyota was refusing to support the new standards--and now Chrysler has joined the Japanese giant in shunning the new rules. Mexico is trying to introduce a similar standard to that of the incremental CAFE requirements, requiring a carmaker's range to meet an average of 54.5 mpg by 2025. 35 mpg by 2016 The country has set a target for cars and light trucks of 35 mpg by 2016--set to save 18...
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Chrysler Yanks Plug-In Hybrid Test Fleet Off Roads, Will Replace Batteries
Ask most people about Chrysler's plug-in hybrid prototype program, and you'll get something like, "Huh? Chrysler has plug-in hybrids?" In fact, the company does: 23 minivans and 109 pickup trucks on the roads for almost a year now, all prototypes to test the technology. Today, the company announced...
John Voelcker -
Fancy A 9-Speed Gearbox For Better Gas Mileage? Chrysler Does
To those who remember "three on the tree" or "four on the floor", today's seven and eight-speed automatic transmissions seem to offer a bewildering amount of gears to choose from. Chrysler will go one better in 2013 with a nine-speed automatic transmission, as the maker looks towards improving...
Antony Ingram -
Chrysler To Feds: Support Natural-Gas Cars As Well As Plug-In
Government incentives are a popular (if controversial) way of getting more buyers behind the wheel of electric cars. Bring down the price, and buyers will follow. Whatever you think of the politics behind the incentives, others are simply concerned that they aren't getting the same treatment. One...
Antony Ingram -
Chrysler Sorts Out Its Green Branding: HFE For Gas To Join EcoDiesel
On Friday we revealed that Chrysler is introducing a new badging system for its upcoming range of diesel engines, known as EcoDiesel. Now, the company has filed another trademark with the patent office, known as "HFE High Fuel Efficiency". Just as the EcoDiesel tag will be used on the marque's...
Antony Ingram -
1981 Jet 007: Retro Chrysler-Based Electric Car On eBay
A common misconception about electric cars is that they're a fairly recent phenomenon. Anyone who ever lusted over GM's EV1 will tell you that isn't the case, and Jay Leno might inform you otherwise too, no doubt parading a line of early 20th Century electric cars past you as he does so. But even...
Antony Ingram -
You'll no doubt be familiar with the term 'platform sharing', a name given to basic automotive architecture that finds itself used on a variety of models in a range, or even across manufacturers. The basic underpinnings of a Volkswagen Golf can also be found under an Audi TT, A3, Volkswagen Jetta, Beetle and in Europe, several other vehicles. Even the visually unrelated Ford Fiesta and Mazda2 are similar under the skin. We think the biggest automotive mongrel resides in Europe's Chrysler range, though. "Chrysler" Ypsilon One is the Delta, a re-badged Lancia based on a similar Fiat platform to...
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Chrysler Town & Country Plug-In Hybrids Now Testing Across U.S.
Chrysler has completed the roll-out of its small fleet of Town & Country plug-in hybrids, after delivering the first vehicles at the beginning of April. Only 25 of the plug-in minivans have been produced, as part of a two-year test suitability and public reaction to the vehicles. The first four...
Antony Ingram -
Chrysler Abandons Quest For Energy Dept Low-Interest Loans
The U.S. Department of Energy hasn't made any new loans under its Advanced Technology Vehicle Program in well over a year. At its current rate, it may never do so. The latest company to walk away from applications for low-interest loans from the $25 billion DoE program is Chrysler. This afternoon...
John Voelcker -
Chrysler To Offer Diesel Engine Options, But Only In Trucks
Chrysler will soon sell a diesel-powered Jeep Grand Cherokee, which may be followed by a diesel-powered Dodge Durango. The next Ram Dakota will get a diesel, too, but don't expect to see one in a Chrysler automobile.
Kurt Ernst -
Electric Fiat 500 Spied Testing In Michigan, Intro For 2013 Likely
Almost two years ago, in January 2010, a mysterious electric version of the Fiat 500 appeared the Detroit Auto Show on the Chrysler stand. Then, two months later, Chrysler said it would sell an electric 500 in the U.S. market. Engineers at the company's Auburn Hills, Michigan, headquarters would...
John Voelcker -
Chrysler: “We’re Making Hybrids, But Only Because We Have To”
Sergio Marchionne, the head of the Chrysler Group and Fiat Motors, has never been a fan of hybrid electric or pure electric vehicles. But in a recent interview with autonews.com, the boss of both car firms said that the only way Chrysler will reach fuel economy goals set in place by the Obama...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Earlier this year, our colleagues over at Motor Authority told you that Chrysler was planning on bringing a Diesel option to its U.S. spec Jeep Grand Cherokee SUV some time before 2013. Now in an interview with Automotive News, Sergio Marchionne, CEO of Chrysler Fiat has confirmed that the 2013 Jeep Grand Cherokee will come with a clean diesel option for U.S. buyers. Producing 241 horsepower and 406 pound-feet of torque, the V6 turbodiesel engine due in the 2013 Jeep Grand Cherokee is a slightly more powerful version of the diesel engine found in the European 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee. There...
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2012 Chrysler 300 To Get 31 MPG Highway, Thanks To 8-Speed Automatic
Half a century ago, automatic transmissions had two or three speeds, and progress has come slowly since then. Today, many cars are still sold with four-speed automatics, though five- and six-speeds are the new normal. Next year, Chrysler will introduce eight-speed automatics on its full-size...
John Voelcker -
New Chrysler Engine To Burn Gas And Diesel--At The Same Time
You probably drive a gasoline car. And surely you've heard of cars with diesel engines. But how about a car with an engine that burns both fuels, at the same time? That's what Chrysler is working on, it turns out, funded in part with research dollars from the U.S. Department of Energy. Author Mike...
John Voelcker -
DoE's Chu Hopes Chrysler Can Play With Big Kids, Get Loans At Last
Well, looks like Chrysler is getting closer to playing with the big kids at last. The back-from-bankruptcy third U.S. automaker, now effectively controlled by Italy's Fiat, is putting together a financial package that will allow it to pay off all the money invested in it by the Obama Administration...
John Voelcker -
Chrysler Ditches GEM Low-Speed Electric Cars, Goes Mainstream
You wouldn’t know it, but until recently Chrysler was responsible for one of the most recognizable electric vehicle brands worldwide. But like the embarrassing cousin at the family reunion, Chrysler’s ownership of low-speed Neighborhood Electric Vehicle manufacturers Global Electric...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Chrysler To Join Honda In Selling Natural-Gas Cars...In 2017
Ask anyone to name an alternate fuel, and natural gas is rarely the first one that comes to mind. Ethanol, perhaps, and increasingly electricity. But natural gas? Not so much. Yet in other parts of the world, as many as 2 percent of the vehicles on the road are fueled by natural gas, in countries...
John Voelcker -
There is nothing a company CEO hates more than not making a profit on a product, but as Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne knows, it is sometimes a necessary evil in the evolution of a new technology. Speaking at Fiat S.p.A’s general meeting on Wednesday, Marchionne spoke frankly about his company’s involvement in electric cars. “The economics of EVs simply don’t work. On the 500 that (Chrysler) will begin selling in the U.S. next year, we will loose over $10,000 per unit despite the retail price being three times higher” The small four-seat retro-styled...
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How Chrysler's Hydraulic Hybrid Works: Energy From Pressure
Chrysler has come out of hibernation with a bang, as far as green and more fuel-efficient vehicles are concerned. The company announced Wednesday that it would partner with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to build and test prototypes of a different kind of hybrid vehicle, one that...
John Voelcker -
Sergio Marchionne: Hybrid Minivan Will Join Chrysler 300 Hybrid In 2013
Earlier this week we heard from Sergio Marchionne, the demanding CEO of Fiat-Chrysler, that a hybrid version of the new 2011 Chrysler 300 sedan would arrive sometime in 2013. Now, at Chrysler’s Windsor plant in Canada, Marchionne has revealed that the hybrid 300 will be joined in 2013 by a...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
Hybrids Redux: Chrysler 300 Hybrid Sedan To Launch In 2013
Chrysler's got bigger problems right now than whether or not it builds hybrid cars. After quickly spiffing up of its line of aging, unappealing cars and crossovers for 2011, the company's engineers are deep into designing modern, fuel efficient compact and midsize Chrysler, Dodge, and Jeep vehicles...
John Voelcker -
Chrysler And EPA Set To Announce New Drivetrain Research Project
With all the hoopla surrounding this week’s 2011 Detroit Auto Show, we’re quite surprised to learn that Chrysler has yet another major announcement to make, this time together with the Environmental Protection Agency. The two groups are set to announce a new research and development...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
Is Natural Gas The Green Solution for Hybrid-less Chrysler?
Last summer, when Fiat-Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne lauded his company's line of European vehicles that run on compressed natural gas, it may have seemed like an off-the-cuff remark. But in fact, natural gas may be the only green or alternative fuel that Chrysler can feasibly adopt in any kind of...
John Voelcker