1961 Chrysler Newport Wagon on 2040-cars

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Fiat Chrysler, Peugeot announce merger as world's No. 4 carmaker

MILAN  — Fiat Chrysler and France's PSA Peugeot said Thursday they have agreed to merge to create the world's fourth-largest automaker with enough scale to confront big shifts in the industry, including a race to develop electric cars and driverless technologies. Italian-American Fiat Chrysler brings with it a strong footprint in North America, where it makes at least two-thirds of its profits, while Peugeot is the No. 2 automaker in Europe. Both lag in China, however, despite the participation of Peugeot's Chinese shareholder, Dongfeng, and are playing catching up in developing electric vehicles. Fiat Chrysler shares were trading up 9% at 14 euros in Milan, while PSA Peugeot shares were down 3.2% to 22.84 euros. The 50-50 merger is expected to offer savings of 3.7 billion euros ($4 billion), which the automakers expect to achieve without any factory closures — a concern of unions in both France and Italy where the carmakers have more overlap. Fiat Chrysler's strongest brands are Jeep SUVs and Ram trucks and it is focusing on relaunching its premium and luxury brands, Alfa Romeo and Maserati, with a focus on hybrid engines. It still makes smaller cars under the Fiat marquee, mostly for the European and Latin American markets. PSA Peugeot makes mostly small, city-friendly cars, family sedans and SUVs under the nameplates of Peugeot, Citroen and Germany-based Opel, which it bought in 2017. That is where the companies can expect to have the most overlap. The new company would be worth $50 billion, with revenue of 170 billion euros ($189 billion). It would produce 8.7 million cars a year — still behind Toyota, Volkswagen and the Renault-Nissan alliance, which make over 10 million each. Once a merger is finalized, PSA Peugeot CEO Carlos Tavares will be chief executive of the new company, with Fiat Chrysler Chairman John Elkann becoming chairman. Fiat Chrysler CEO Mike Manley will have a senior executive role. "This convergence brings significant value to all the stakeholders and opens a bright future for the combined entity," Tavares said in a statement. Manley called it "an industry-changing combination," and noted the long history of cooperation with Peugeot in industrial vehicles in Europe. The 11-member board will be made up of five members from each company plus Tavares, who is locked in as CEO for five years.

Feds fretting over remote hack of Jeep Cherokee

A cyber-security gap that allowed for the remote hacking of a Jeep Cherokee has federal officials concerned. An associate administrator with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Thursday that news of the breach conducted by researchers Chris Valasek and Charlie Miller had "floated around the entire federal government." "The Homeland Security folks sent out broadcasts that, 'Here's an issue that needs to be addressed,'" said Nathaniel Beuse, an associate administrator with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Valasek and Miller commandeered remote control of the Cherokee through a security flaw in the cellular connection to the car's Uconnect infotainment system. From his Pittsburgh home, Valasek manipulated critical safety inputs, such as transmission function, on Miller's Jeep as he drove along a highway near St. Louis, MO. The scope of the remote breach is believed to be the first of its kind. The prominent cyber-security researchers needed no prior access to the vehicle to perform the hack, and the scope of the remote breach is believed to be the first of its kind. A NHTSA spokesperson said the agency's cyber-security staff members are "putting their expertise to work assessing this threat and the response, and we will take action if we determine it's necessary to protect safety." A Homeland Security spokesperson referred questions about the hack to Chrysler. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles has already been the subject of a federal hearing this month, in which officials scrutinized whether the company had adequately fixed recalled vehicles and repeatedly failed to notify the government about defects. But cyber-security concerns are a new and different species for the regulatory agency. Only hours before the Jeep hack was announced by Wired magazine earlier this week, NHTSA administrator Dr. Mark Rosekind said hacking vulnerabilities were a threat to privacy, safety, and the public's trust with new connected and autonomous technologies that allow vehicles to communicate. NHTSA outlined its response to the cyber-security challenges facing the industry in a report issued Tuesday. In it, the agency summarized its best practices for thwarting attacks and said it will analyze possible real-time infiltration responses. But the agency's ability to handle hackers may only go so far.

40+ cars that barely avoid the gas guzzler tax

The Gas Guzzler schedule, with mpg ratings and charges that haven't changed since 1991, lays out which fuel-swillers owe what to Uncle Sam.
I started thinking about the "Gas Guzzler Tax" - considerably less well known as The Energy Tax Act of 1978 - when I was driving Dodge's new Challenger SRT Hellcat last week. Unsurprisingly for a car that can burn 1.5 gallons of gas per minute at max tilt, theoretically able to empty a full tank of premium in about 13 minutes, the Hellcat will be subject to the Gas Guzzler Tax schedule when it goes on sale.