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FCA and iPhone maker plan Chinese electric vehicle joint venture

MILAN — Italian American automaker Fiat Chrysler and Taiwan's Hon Hai plan to set up a joint venture to manufacture electric vehicles and to engage in the business of wirelessly connected vehicles, Hon Hai said on Thursday. Fiat Chrysler (FCA) and Hon Hai are negotiating to set up a 50-50 joint venture, Hon Hai said in a statement. It added Hon Hai would hold its 50% share both directly and indirectly and that its direct shareholding would not exceed 40%. Hon Hai is the parent of Foxconn, the Chinese assembler of Apple iPhones. FCA last month reached a binding agreement for a $50 billion tie-up with France's PSA that will create the world's No. 4 carmaker. The joint venture with Hon Hai will produce vehicles for the Chinese market, but many details of the accord are still to be worked out, one source close to the matter said, adding that a final deal was expected to be signed in the coming months. Foxconn has been investing heavily in a variety of future transportation ventures for several years, including Didi Chuxing, the Chinese ride services giant, and Chinese electric vehicle startups Byton and Xpeng. Foxconn also has invested in Chinese battery giant CATL and a variety of other mostly Chinese transportation tech start-ups. FCA will launch its first full-electric model - the 500 small car - this year. Reporting by Giulio Piovaccari in Milan, additional reporting by Paul Lienert in Detroit. Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

2014 Fiat 500L [w/video]

Practicality From The Italian Ministry of Cute
As seen in the correct Italian/European light, Fiat is rightly dubbed a small car kingdom. This is not the marque's whole story, though, and it's certainly not a way Fiat appreciates being pigeonholed. But even the brand itself sort of has to admit that, in the end, without clever and right-priced smaller cars in its lineup, it might not even exist today.
Between the early 1980s and the dawn of the 21st century, however, the Fiat brand seemingly did everything it could to wreck itself and its core compact-car reputation by producing a series of certifiably unamazing cars that mostly looked drab and behaved below average. Just go have a gander at the Ritmo, the Uno, the Duna, the 1992-98 Cinquecento, 2004-07 Seicento/600, and the most recent European mega-flop, the Stilo, discontinued in 2008. Thankfully, almost right out of the gates since the mid-aughts, however, that has no longer been the case.

Next-generation Fiat 500e EV will be all new at 2020 Geneva Motor Show

Fiat's electrified European future begins with the next-generation 500e coming to the 2020 Geneva Motor Show. Maintaining the overall proportions of the current car, everything under the skin will be new, starting with the EV platform. This is the same architecture that would propel a potential production version of the "Affordable But Cool" Centoventi concept that Fiat brought to this year's Geneva Motor Show. Fiat- Chrysler marketing boss Olivier Francois described the new 500e as, "A new 500, totally renewed. A new object. Totally electric. It's kind of an urban Tesla, with beautiful style. Italianess, dolce vita in an electric car. It's the polar opposite of Centoventi." We doubt the Centoventi concept's battery arrangement will debut in the 500e, but that would be cool. The show car's modular battery concept could run for 62 miles on its integrated unit, but more batteries could be added — including one under the seat — for 310 miles of range. Instead, we'd expect Fiat to shoot for something like the Peugeot e-208, which gets a WLTP-rated 211 miles of range. The Italian carmaker doesn't sell the 500e in Europe. Fiat's starting its electric push there with the new 500e because it wants to enter the market at the low end of pricing. That segment is also where the brand happens to be strongest; Autocar wrote that the 500 and Fiat Panda account for a third of the city car market. Since the new Fiat 500 arrived 12 years ago, more than 2 million have been sold in Europe alone. Although an Italian buyer can purchase a Fiat 500 Pop for 14,350 euros (about $16,300), Francois said the average transaction price is 24,000 euros ($27,250). The competition in the urban EV segment sells for around 32,000 euros, leaving Fiat room to make a digestible price jump from what buyers pay now for ICE versions. More competition is on the way, too, with Mini's electric Cooper coming this year, and Honda's rocking little Urban EV soon. Fiat takes an intermediate step later in 2019 when a 500 with a mild hybrid system goes on sale. That model employs a 12-volt belt-driven starter-generator. The current 500 with internal combustion will continue alongside the electric variant with stylistic and technical updates. The coming 500e platform, developed at FCA, is called the City Car powertrain.