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Fiat Chrysler's profit boosted by Ram and Jeep in North America

MILAN/DETROIT — Fiat Chrysler took the market by surprise by sticking to its full-year profit guidance on Wednesday after a strong performance from its Ram pickup truck in North America helped it defy an industry slowdown. Chief Executive Mike Manley, in FCA's first earnings release since a failed attempt to merge with France's Renault, also left the door open to that or other deals. "We are open to opportunity," Manley said on a call with analysts. "I have no doubt why there still would be interest in it," he added, when pressed on what it would take to revive talks with Renault. Manley declined to comment further. FCA last month abandoned its $35 billion merger offer for Renault, blaming French politics for scuttling what would have been a landmark deal to create the world's third-biggest automaker. Manley said a merger was not a must-have and Fiat Chrysler's business plan was strong. The company said it remained confident its adjusted earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) would top last year's 6.7 billion euros ($7.5 billion). Given disappointing forecasts from other automakers this earnings season, FCA's confirmation of the outlook sent Milan-listed shares in the Italian-American automaker, whose other brands include Jeep, up over 4%. A broad-based auto sales downturn has rattled the sector, forcing FCA's competitors — including Renault, Daimler and Aston Martin — to cut their sales forecasts after second-quarter results, while U.S. carmaker Ford gave a weaker-than-expected 2019 profit outlook. Japan's Nissan, a long-term partner of Renault, said it would cut 12,500 jobs by 2023 after its earnings collapsed. In the second quarter FCA's adjusted EBIT totaled 1.52 billion euros, versus analysts' expectations of 1.43 billion euros, according to a Reuters poll. FCA's U.S. shipments were down 12% in the second quarter but the group said that the successful performance of its Ram brand resulted in an enhanced share of the large pickup truck market of 27.9%, up 7 percentage points from last year. Adjusted EBIT margin in North America rose to 8.9% from 6.5% in the first quarter, thanks to strong demand for the heavy-duty Ram and the new Jeep Gladiator pickup. Chief Financial Officer Richard Palmer also said FCA expected to report up to 10% margins in the region in both the third and fourth quarters.

Daily Driver: 2015 Ram ProMaster Cargo

Daily Driver videos are micro-reviews of vehicles in the Autoblog press fleet, reviewed by the staffers who drive them every day. Today's Daily Driver features the 2015 Ram ProMaster Cargo, reviewed by Seyth Miersma. You can watch the video above or read a transcript below. Watch more Autoblog videos at /videos. Show full video transcript text [00:00:00:00] I'm in a vehicle that really kind of belies the name of this video series, Daily Driver. This is the 2015 Ram Promaster Cargo Van. I'm in the high roof extended length version of it. You can see that it's got an empty cargo bay behind me. It's a little strange because what I'm doing right now is commuting in it, which is definitely not what this van is made to do. The single strongest attribute of the Promaster [00:00:30:00] package that I found was its maneuverability at low speeds in and around town. That wasn't really something that I expected. I knew from driving the rest of the big vans in this segment. I've been in various Sprinters over the years, although not the brand new one, and I put a lot of miles actually on a Nissan NV. They're all meant to be more nimble than they would seem from their exterior, but the Ram just feels kind of a class above. It turns on a dime. It's really, really easy to [00:01:00:00] pull up close to a curb or another car and be able to just get in and out of a space with very little room around you. I had no problem getting up to speed with the rest of traffic. Merging and passing aren't really an issue. Sometimes you'll hear her struggle a little bit if you really put your foot in and you're trying to get around somebody, but that's just wind resistance and curb weight man, that's too be expected. Another aspect that I was really impressed with with the Promaster is the 3.6 [00:01:30:00] liter V6 engine, both in terms of its performance and its economy. It's putting out out 280 horsepower, 258 pound-feet of torque. It's a huge van. It's not quick. The cargo area back there is really nice. Not only is it tall enough that I can stand up in it. I mean, this vehicle is close to nine feet overall from the exterior dimensions. Access to the cargo area is just as easy as you would hope for too. You got a big, big sliding door over here. The rear doors open completely [00:02:00:00] flat so that it's easy to both maneuver and to get stuff in and out, obviously. The load floor is pretty low. Easily accessible. You've got the Uconnect screen with the nicer head unit.

Ford F-450 claims best-in-class towing, company abandons practice of removing items to boost payload number

The ongoing heavy-duty truck battle between Ford and Ram is showing no signs of slowing down. The Blue Oval is trying to remove at least one point of contention between the two brands by testing its 2015 F-450 Super Duty using the Society of Automotive Engineers J2807 towing standard, which Ram also uses. In the new evaluation, the F-450 is rated at a max towing capacity of 31,200 pounds. That's an identical amount as under Ford's own, previous test.
"We leave no doubt with customers that the F-450 pickup truck has best-in-class towing of 31,200 pounds - whether tested using our own internal towing standards or SAE J2807," said Raj Nair, Ford group vice president for Global Product Development, in the company's release.
At the same time, Ford is also changing how it calculates the F-450's payload. Instead of using its minimum curb weight as before, the brand is now using the truck's base curb weight. The revision lowers the pickup's rating to 5,300 pounds, compared to 5,450 pounds previously. The company said in its announcement that the reason for this is "aligning its payload rating practices with other manufacturers to make it easier for customers to compare vehicles." General Motors made a similar switch for its pickups in August.