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Detroit gets ready to train up workers for coming FCA Jeep job boom

DETROIT — Fiat Chrysler Automobiles this week announced a $4.5 billion investment that would bring 6,500 new manufacturing jobs to Detroit and its suburbs and, nearly two years before the first new vehicles will even roll off the line, the city already is taking steps to ensure it can provide enough workers with the needed skills. Detroit's economy was once dominated by automotive manufacturing, but since the industry's gradual migration from the metro area it has suffered among the highest poverty and unemployment rates in the country. Not long ago, Detroit was struggling to provide basic services, culminating in bankruptcy in 2013. Providing job training then would have been a tall order. But in its recovery, the city has overhauled its training programs and slowly built a track record for preparing people for specific jobs. "We're not starting from scratch," Jeff Donofrio, the city's executive director of workforce development, said Wednesday, a day after the Italian-American automaker announced its plan . "We want to make sure we're prepared for all the ... jobs that will come to the city as a result of the investments." The city works with two high schools, a community college and a workforce development organization, in partnerships with the auto union and companies, to tailor training programs for positions in manufacturing, construction, information technology and health care. Detroit worked closely with global auto parts supplier Flex-N-Gate to ensure Detroiters were handed jobs when the company last year opened a plant in what officials described as the largest investment in the city in two decades. The city and company developed customized training with the nonprofit Focus: Hope, which prioritizes workforce development and education. "About 250 individuals went through that training and a vast majority were hired by Flex-N-Gate," Donofrio said. With tax breaks and land acquisitions still to be hammered out, Fiat Chrysler's specific workforce needs have yet to be revealed. But Donofrio insists that the city has a growing force of eligible workers: Detroit last year enrolled about 2,500 people in training leading to a credential for a specific job, up from about 700 two years earlier. Some prospective FCA jobs could be offered to laid-off Fiat Chrysler workers or those already working for the company on a temporary basis, and United Auto Workers officials say many of them are already in Detroit.

Fiat Chrysler’s Sergio Marchionne throws more cold water on Tesla, EVs

Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne has once again sounded off on industry upstart Tesla and its wunderkind boss, Elon Musk. In the process, he doubled down on FCA's reluctance to follow its competitors headlong into electrifying its vehicle fleet, saying "we're not betting the bank on going fully electric in the next decade. It won't happen." Marchionne made his comments on Monday during remarks at the New York Stock Exchange, where he was marking the 70th anniversary of Ferrari. They come as Tesla struggles to ramp up production of its Model 3 sedan, its first mass-market offering, and the company continues to hemorrhage money. Here's what he said: "We still don't have a viable model for delivering an electric car. As much as I like Elon Musk, and he's a good friend, and actually he's done a phenomenal job of marketing Telsa, I remain unconvinced of a new economic viability of the model that he's pitching. So I think we need to be careful, because when we embrace electrification, and I made comments on the fact that we lose money on every Fiat 500, the electric that we sell in the U.S. Now that's reflective of the 2011-2010 costs in terms of components. Those costs have come down. If I were to do it again, I would certainly reduce the amount of the loss, but I would not make any money. And you can't run economic entities on losses. It doesn't happen. "So how do we find a convergence of technology bringing prices of components down and allows us to price accordingly — or we need to navigate through this process in a combined way between combustion and electrification to yield at least a minimum of economic returns that allows for our continuity? The last thing you want is me to be successful selling cars for 24 months and then go bust. That's not a good story. Especially in a place like this which rewards economic success. Let's not sit here and design our own future in the tank. Let's try and do it properly. We will do all the right things. We are investing without making a lot of noise on electrification. We will combine it with combustion to yield the right level of CO2. But we're not betting the bank on going fully electric in the next decade. It won't happen." It's not the first time Marchionne has publicly expressed doubts about Tesla's business plan.

Strains between France and Italy risk Renault-FCA merger

PARIS/ROME — Fiat Chrysler's proposed $35 billion merger with Renault has cheered investors, won conditional support from Paris and Rome and even earned cautious backing from trade unions. Beneath this veneer, however, the bold attempt to create the world's third-largest carmaker risks becoming rapidly embroiled in the fraught relationship between France's europhile President Emmanuel Macron and Italy's euroskeptic leaders. For while Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini hailed the proposal as a "brilliant operation," Italy's creaking, state-subsidized Fiat factories are likely to bear the brunt of any production-related cost savings. FCA and Renault said this week that more than 5 billion euros ($5.6 billion) of annual savings would come mainly from combining platforms, consolidating powertrain and electrification investments and the benefits of increased scale. Salvini and France's Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, who called the deal a "good opportunity" to build a European industrial champion able to compete with China and the United States, have both said they want guarantees on local jobs. "It's not every day that I agree with Salvini," said Le Maire, whose government appears to hold the trump cards. When it comes to where any job cuts fall, France will be helped by its existing 15 percent holding in Renault, whose superior efficiency at its five French plants makes it better placed to handle a supply glut, the demise of the petrol engine and the investments needed for electric and autonomous vehicles. "It will take many, many years to find real savings, and ugly political and operational realities can often swamp the potential of such new entities," Bernstein analyst Max Warburton said of the FCA-Renault plan to rival Japan's Toyota and Germany's Volkswagen. Advantage France? As well as Italy's government having to cope with the aftermath of European elections, which coincided with news of the FCA-Renault plans, political leaders in Rome were only informed shortly before the deal was made public, an FCA source said. This contrasted with the way the French government was treated, with Fiat Chrysler Chairman John Elkann, a fluent French speaker, letting it know of his merger proposal to Renault weeks ago, a French government official said.