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How can they get a rotary engine to comply with emissions regulations? Wankel engines are as dirty as two-strokes: the lubricant mixes with the fuel.

My understanding of e-Ducato was that SMRE was contracted as both an engineering resource to develop the system and as a supplier of the resulting, with FCA retaining some rights to those designs as a result, rather than a straight off-the-shelf procurement. If there was assignment of IP, it...

Your grid is kicking its heels every night. Adding load at night for car charging is not a problem. Nobody’s expecting the electricity to be supplied for free, so there’s a commercial incentive for producers to provide it: after all, the US electricity grid was able to deal with data-centers...

My understanding is that both variants of WL will arrive in Europe - pricelists for WK2 have already been withdrawn in most countries in preparation for the new model. There’s really no situation where WL74 doesn’t come to the European market - Grand Cherokee is a solid seller for Jeep and at...

Lancia and DS have a lot of overlap. Not surprising, as DS was modelled on Lancia in the first place.

Nice pictures, and the front-end is no longer much of a secret after seeing them, but the text accompanying them in that article is mostly wrong: It’s not based on the Compass; the PHEV will be 1.5 litres, not 1.3; and Tavares didn’t want higher performance from Tonale, but rather lower CO2...

No, no change of processes. This announcement is basically saying that the former FCA design studios in Turin and Auburn Hills will now start to offer the same third-party product-design services as Peugeot’s design group did. They’re taking a business model that worked for Peugeot, and...

No doubt Tesla will provide US owners of other cars with an (expensive) adaptor between its DC cable and a CCS2 connector. In Europe, the “Supercharger” network is still called that, and it still provides exactly the same power as the US one, the only difference is that it does so through a...

BEVs are definitely the future - the tipping point was a couple of years ago, and there’s no going back now; Lithium-ion BEVs are probably not the future, though. Battery technologies are evolving, and today’s Li-ion batteries will no doubt be replaced by better chemistries, just like the old...

500e would sell in some metropolitan areas in the USA, just as 500 did, and because there’s no USA-only factory that needs to be kept running, and no emissions re-engineering, the break-even point is lower. I think it’s a chance worth taking. Another point in the new 500e’s favor is that, as a...

Alfa up 30% is very good to see, especially considering the brand managed to grow its sales slightly in 2020. Looks like the changes to marketing and dealer support are paying off. Tonale arrives next year, but it’s a shame that the Alfa sibling to WL appears to have been cancelled (the...

The four STLA architectures are for passenger vehicles; Large LCVs and special-purpose models like Wrangler will continue to get their own. Ducato is already on its own architecture, shared with PSA vehicles. Its lineage goes back to the mid-1970s FIAT 240/Citroën C35. What will most likely...

The FIAT brand is very well regarded for LCVs in Europe, while RAM is unknown. Replacing that brand with RAM would bring no positives, and quite a bit of baggage. Stellantis will continue to sell Opel, FIAT, Citroën and Peugeot van models in Europe. Euro LCVs are all about light unladen...

That kind of AC control assembly is used in FCA vehicles too: both Wagoneer and 500e use it. First time on a former PSA brand, though. Sign of a change of supplier, maybe?

This is no surprise. 500e is backordered everywhere. Part of the reason was the battery supply constraint earlier this year that dropped production to a daily rate that works out at around 50k/year (it looks like they were quickly ramping up to the projected 70k annual rate prior to that)...

EVs from all manufacturers have a standard 12v lead-acid battery in them, as do High-voltage hybrids. Lithium batteries can’t handle cold, so you use the lead-acid pack to provide heat to warm them up.

Most “3.0“ engines are 2.9-something as it is, but maybe the true displacement is something like 2,920 cc which is too far from 3.0 to be advertised as a ”3.0“. (Note: I do not know the actual displacement of this engine) WK was planned from the beginning as including a PHEV shortly after...

FIAT is the market leader in Brazil, and I actually can see them bringing in EVs there, but yes, as a supplement to an existing strong presence in the country, not a replacement. Some Brazilian states (São Paolo particularly) have serious air-quality issues due to traffic pollution, and while...

Tonale has a small chance of arriving in the US, but a lot depends on how it can be differentiated from Hornet. Not a lot can be done regarding power outputs and running weight (unless Hornet ends up bigger than Tonale), but I think there's scope to differentiate the driving experience with a...

Names can come back, but on different types of vehicle.