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Chrysler purchases remaining shares from VEBA Trust, announces funding plan

It's official: The Detroit Three is now The Detroit Two and The Fiat Subsidiary, Chrysler. Both the Italian carmaker and The Pentastar announced the completion of cash payments and a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on future payments necessary to make the Chrysler Group a wholly-owned subsidiary of Fiat. As previously detailed, Chrysler made a cash payment of $1.9 billion and Fiat North America made a cash payment of $1.75 billion to the Voluntary Employment Benefit Association (VEBA) run by the United Auto Workers union.
On top of that, Chrysler Group signed an MOU that agrees to payments of $700 million to the VEBA in four installments, the first of which was made concurrently with the other cash payments. And for you trivia mavens, the full name of the UAW is the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America. So go impress your loved ones with that nugget after you check out the press release below.

FCA goes big on little Fiat 500 EV, plans to build 80,000

TURIN, Italy — Fiat Chrysler plans to invest 700 million euros ($787 million) in an electric makeover of its iconic Fiat 500, a top executive said on Thursday, as the automaker seeks to move on from its failed bid to merge with France's Renault. FCA's chief operating officer for Europe, Middle East and Africa, Pietro Gorlier, announced the investment — the Italian-American company's biggest single bet on an electric vehicle — at its Mirafiori plan in Turin, northern Italy. "The plan is confirmed," Gorlier told reporters, when asked if FCA's investment in electric vehicle technology would remain unchanged after its $35 billion plan to merge with Renault, an electric car pioneer, collapsed last month. He said FCA would invest the 700 million euros to build a new production line at Mirafiori to turn out 80,000 of the new 500 BEV, its first battery electric vehicle to be marketed in Europe after a smaller, initial foray in the United States. Production will start in the second quarter of 2020, with capacity to be expanded later, Gorlier said. The 500 compact car is one of the group's most famous models, launched by Fiat in the late 1950s and quickly becoming a symbol of Italian urban design. The 700 million euros investment is part of a plan announced last year to invest 5 billion euros in Italy up to 2021. In abandoning its merger offer for Renault, FCA blamed French politics for scuttling what would have been a landmark deal to create the world's third-biggest automaker. Featured Gallery Fiat 500e Green Chrysler Fiat Electric

Recharge Wrap-up: Fiat 500e on sale in Oregon, Germany to offer EVs free parking

The 2015 Fiat 500e is now available in Oregon. The new 500e features an updated center console, as well as two new exterior colors: Luce Blu (which Fiat describes as light blue with a pearl finish) and Celeste (light blue). The 2015 500e is available for lease in California and Oregon for $199 a month for 36 months, plus $999 down. Fiat offers 500e owners and lessees 12 days of free rental per year through Enterprise in the first three years of ownership for days when the driver needs something with greater range or capacity than their small EV. Read more in the press release below. Germany moves to offer free parking to EVs in an attempt to encourage their adoption. The German cabinet has backed the bill, set to begin in spring 2015, which would also include certain hybrids in the free parking scheme. The eligible cars will get some sort of special label to make them more recognizable. Germany has a target of 1 million EVs on its roads by 2020. Read more at Bloomberg. Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have determined that the best automotive use of natural gas is to provide electricity for EVs. In a well-to-wheels analysis, using the natural gas to power efficient turbines to produce electricity uses less energy and produces fewer emissions than other fuels, including on-board CNG. The research also concludes that CNG cars are a viable option, particularly if the fuel could be integrated into hybrid vehicles. The study digs into other future technologies, and what they might mean for overall energy use compared to using natural gas as a stationary power source for EVs. Read more over at Green Car Congress. Scientists have created a new device to generate electricity from wind. Wind passing through the device causes gold-plated "tongues" to rub against PTFE tape, generating electricity using the triboelectric effect. Researchers created a triboelectric generator prototype that fit on top of a car in order to test it out. While mounting it on a vehicle may not necessarily be an ideal way to generate electricity for practical purposes, the test showed that the device works to produce a certain amount of energy at a specific windspeed, It could certainly be useful in stationary applications at the least, and might have further-reaching implications for generating electricity through wind or friction. Read more at Gizmodo.