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Final Toledo Jeep decision may have nothing to do with city's efforts

Toledo, OH is doing all that it can to keep production of the Jeep Wrangler in its boundaries, but the biggest issue facing the plant may be insurmountable, no matter how desperately the city wants to keep the Wrangler local. The Wrangler is built in a rather interesting manner at the Toledo Supplier Park: Fiat Chrysler only handles the very final assembly of each vehicle, while two other companies, Kuka, a German firm, and Hyundai-Mobis, a member of the sprawling Hyundai empire, produce the body and chassis, respectively. The vehicles are then transferred over to the FCA part of the park, where they're painted and completed. This was, as The Detroit News explains, a convenient arrangement back in 2006 when the supplier park opened. Chrysler, which was still owned by Daimler at the time, arranged for Kuka and Mobis to handle production, saving it a huge sum of money. Both suppliers own their own machinery and buildings and employ their own workers. Now that FCA is a relatively healthy entity, though, there's not a lot of need to be sharing profits with two other companies. "What [FCA boss Sergio Marchionne] would like is to have the advantages of high-capacity utilization, owning that capacity and taking advantage of that for himself versus having a supplier doing some of the things his competitors do internally," David Cole, chairman emeritus at the Ann Arbor, MI-based Center for Automotive Research, told The News. "It really adds another level of complexity to the situation." While Sergio Marchionne is a man that generally gets what he wants, it seems unlikely that either Mobis or Kuka would give up their role quietly. According to Jon Zapf, Mobis North America's chairperson for UAW Local 12, the company "definitely wants to maintain their part of this production process." According to The News, Jeep is likely to announce the location of next-generation Wrangler production in June. Expect to hear much more on this one in the coming months.

Chrysler reports $166M net income for Q1, down $307M vs. 2012

Preliminary first-quarter results from 2013 have been announced by Chrysler, and the company is reporting a net income of $166 million on revenue of $15.4 billion. Compared to this period last year, net income is down $307 million and revenue has dropped $1 billion.
Chrysler says that its quarter was negatively affected by the costs associated with launching its 2013 Ram Heavy Duty, 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee and preparation for the return of the all-new 2014 Jeep Cherokee pictured above. The launches should provide a strong second half of 2013, says the automaker. "We remain on track to achieve our business targets, even as the first-quarter results were affected by an aggressive product launch schedule," said Chrysler Group LLC Chairman and CEO Sergio Marchionne.
On a positive note, the automaker says worldwide vehicle sales are up 8 percent from one year ago, a number pushed by a 12 percent bump in U.S. retail sales. In addition, domestic market share has risen slightly, up to 11.4 percent from 11.2 percent last year. Read more in the official statement below.

Did a US automaker blow the whistle on Hyundai, Kia fuel economy issue?

In all of the most hotly contested mainstream segments of the motoring universe, the difference of one mile per gallon averaged on a widow sticker can mean the difference between a sale and a walk-off - to say nothing of two or three mpg. So, when Hyundai and Kia were forced to reveal that many of their 40-mpg ratings were actually 38s and 37s, well, it made for big news.
It also, conceivably, made for a competitive disadvantage immediately, when the Korean automakers' products were being shopped versus the guys down the block. And it's that disadvantage that makes a recent story from Automotive News so juicy.
AN is reporting that Margo Oge, former head of the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Transportation and Air Quality, got a tip in 2010 that Hyundai/Kia were "cheating" to get its impressive fuel economy numbers. The tip, said Oge (who retired from the EPA this past September), came from a senior vice president from a domestic automaker. The source was credible enough for Oge to launch an audit of the Hyundai figures, which ultimately lead to the debacle that we reported on a few months ago, and that the Korean company has been trying to bounce back from ever since.