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Stellantis sees vehicle loan durations extended amid banking turmoil

Stellantis is seeing clients seeking longer-term financing and leasing deals for their vehicles as a consequence of higher global interest rates, the carmaker's head for the business said. Chief Affiliates Officer Philippe de Rovira said loans which normally had a three-year maturity were now increasingly moved to four years. "This allows customers to get a car for a monthly instalment that is similar to that they had before," he said. The world's third largest carmaker by sales on Tuesday announced it had completed a plan announced in late 2021 to reshuffle and simplify its leasing and financing operations in Europe. Under its terms, Stellantis created a 50-50 single long term multi-brand leasing company named Leasys with Credit Agricole Consumer Finance. It also set up local joint ventures in European countries for its new Stellantis Financial Services unit, formerly Banque PSA Finance, with BNP Paribas Personal Finance and Santander Consumer Finance. "These banks have always had better funding conditions than those we can have as an automaker," de Rovira said. Benefits of the plan included cutting the number of financing and leasing entities the group runs in each country and the number of IT systems it uses, with expected savings exceeding 30% in this particular area, he added. De Rovira said the group had a huge portfolio of orders it had not yet delivered due to supply chain shortages impacting production. "Demand is not our main issue. The issue is to deliver as fast as we can cars that are in our order portfolio, which is still at record levels," he said. The group aims to expand its corporate leased vehicle fleet to more than one million units in 2026 and to double net income from its so-called banking activities to 5.8 billion euros ($6.3 billion) by 2030. De Rovira said Stellantis was not seeing a downward trend in vehicle pricing. "Probably the significant price increases we have seen in 2021 and 2022 will not be repeated because the context is changing, but for the moment we don't see decreases, we see stabilisation". ($1 = 0.9188 euros) (Reporting by Giulio Piovaccari and Gilles Guillaume; Editing by Jan Harvey) Earnings/Financials Plants/Manufacturing Alfa Romeo Chrysler Dodge Jeep RAM

Top torque-to-weight ratios under $100k, $50k and $25k

Horsepower may steal a lot of headlines, but the always-more-complex torque figure is often a critical one for both the workingman and the motoring playboy. The measure of rotational force represents the twist that can liquefy one's tires or haul one's horse trailer. Good stuff.
It follows then, that as with the horsepower-to-weight list that we assembled for you a few months ago, a list of cars that offer the most pound-feet with the fewest pounds to carry, is an interesting one to break down. Sure, there's a big difference in how the torque is applied from a turbocharged six-cylinder in a Swedish luxury sedan and a massive heavy-duty truck's turbo-diesel. But being the car/stat geeks that we are, we think it's kinda neat that those two vehicles rank near each other where torque and weight intersect.
As with the horsepower list, we've given you figures as pounds per every one pound-foot. Again broken down into broad price categories, we've got a mixed bag of 2014 and 2015 models here, too. Every effort has been made to select the most up-to-date prices and specs, and we've also to omitted some '14 cars that won't be re-upped after the ongoing yearly changeover.

Burglars target Detroit-area dealership, steal Hellcat from showroom floor

A crew of Detroit car thieves seriously upped their game this week after stealing a Hellcat Challenger straight off the showroom floor. According to CBS Detroit, at around 1:00 am on January 24, a crew of burglars hit the Snethkamp Ram City dealership in Highland Park, MI. In full view of surveillance cameras, the burglars smashed a large glass door that led to the showroom floor and within seconds made off with a $75,000 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat. First they pushed the car through the broken door and out on to Woodward where a van was waiting. The van then pushed the car to a waiting tow truck and, just like that, the car and the crooks were gone. "It looks like they had about a minute and 30 seconds to open the door and push the car out, and then we see another car pushing it away," owner Mark Snethkamp told WWJ. "We've got some really good video and I'm shocked that the Highland Park police didn't catch them because they were here very shortly right after them." Snethkamp also told WWJ that they haven't had a break-in at the dealership like this since the 90s. Both the car and the suspect remain at large, and the Detroit Police Department are encouraging anyone with information to call either DPD or the Help Eliminate Auto Thefts (HEAT) tip line. VIDEO-2: Not gone in :60 but :90. Thieves still a $75,000 @DodgeHellcat off the showroom floor in #HighlandPark. @WWJ950 @CBSDetroit pic.twitter.com/8FvDkgboJ5 — Vickie Thomas (@VickiethomasWWJ) January 24, 2017 News Source: CBS Detroit Auto News Dodge Coupe Performance Detroit thieves challenger burglary