The US carmaker, which is 20 per cent owned by Fiat, said on Monday that the
electric 500 demonstrated “the immediate benefits of the alliance” between
the two companies, and the speed at which they could work together on
advanced vehicles.

Fiat showed the planned all-electric car in January at the Detroit car show as
the 500EV.

Chrysler
Chrysler said the 500’s small size and weight made it the “perfect” platform
for integrating electric-vehicle technology. Pricing for the car would be
announced closer to the launch, but would be “competitive with similar
electric vehicles in the market”, it said. The company said it had not
decided on a name for the electric model, but that it would be sold under
the Fiat brand.

Fiat sold an electric version of its Panda small car in the 1990s under the
name Elettra.

Fiat plans to launch the conventional combustion-engined version of the 500 in
America later this year. The car will be made by Chrysler in Mexico, with
engines supplied from its plant in Dundee, Michigan.

Relaunch
The launch of the 500 will mark Fiat’s first vehicle sold in the US since it
left the market 25 years ago.

This month Chrysler appointed Laura J Soave, formerly of Volkswagen’s US
operation, as head of the Fiat brand in North America.

Chrysler said that the plug-in 500’s body would be made in Mexico, but that
its electric powertrain would be built at its Auburn Hills headquarters,
which has an on-site production plant.

The planned car is the latest of several electric models to be slated for
production by large carmakers, in spite of doubts among industry analysts
about the size of their future market.

Nissan last week announced a third global production site in Sunderland,
England, for its Leaf, all-electric model, which it is also making at plants
in Smyrna, Tennessee and Oppama, Japan.

Chrysler said on Monday that it planned to cancel development work on a
plug-in hybrid vehicle for its Ram trucks brand because it “could not
formulate an appropriate business case”.

The vehicle had benefited from a Department of Energy grant of up to $48m,
part of $2.4bn of US government stimulus funds earmarked for vehicle
electrification last year.

As a hybrid, the vehicle was powered by both a lithium-ion battery and a
combustion engine.

Chrysler, which was rescued from collapse by the US government last year, said
that hybrids from the programme now in test fleets would “provide valuable
data for the advancement of the technology”.

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