End of an era: New Fiat Doblo production shifts to Spain from Turkey

[patfromigh]

"The new generation of the light commercial vehicle Fiat Doblo, which has been produced in Turkish automaker Tofaş's factory in the northwestern province of Bursa for 22 years will soon be produced at the Vigo factory in Galicia, Spain, according to a company statement on Tuesday."

"With this decision, light commercial models of Fiat, Peugeot, Opel and Citroen within the Stellantis group will be produced on the same platform. Toyota's light commercial model has also been produced in partnership with Stellantis for an extended period."

Source: End of an era: New Fiat Doblo production shifts to Spain from Turkey

What Stellantis is doing to Alfa Romeo is now being done to Fiat Professional. Hopefully this badge engineered product won't wear a Ram badge. It's bad enough we have to put up with those PSA engines with the Mini Coopers in our fleet, I would hate to have that in a small Ram van. I think this small van would be OK for the Chrysler brand as a people mover with domestic power. The Ram ProMaster City has a domestic drivetrain and is a more serious truck that is abuser friendly. It needs to stay that way.

 

[patfromigh]

Here it is on the Fiat Professional website.

New Doblò | Fiat Professional

The new Fiat Professional Doblò comes with new features and enhanced technology . Find out more about its performance, dimensions and extra contents.

www.fiatprofessional.com

I don't know for sure where the 1.2 liter engine originates from, I think it's from the PSA side.

 

[pumadog]

This was to be expected. Now they have a modern, nice looking vehicle with electric options. I wonder if they want to go on producing in autocratic, economically unstable Turkye (new spelling) at all.

As to badge engineering: Absolutely normal for the European commercial vans. Fiat does this since the 70s. Nothing to do with Stellantis and not comparable with passenger cars. The current/old Doblo (built since 2010) has been badge engineered for Opel, the smaller Fiorino for Peugeot/Citroën. The Talento was bought in from Renault, the prevous Scudo from Peugeot/Sevel Nord like the current one. And we all know about the Ducato (Sevel Sud) siblings.

 

[patfromigh]

My problem isn't with badge engineering. It is with mediocre products. The Tofas built Doblo/PMC is the superior product. How do you define modern? The departing product was designed and built with alternative fuels/powertrains in mind. It has more variations for a wider range of commercial applications, and it outperforms the Spanish built vans. "Nice looking" is undermined by the full size vans although they have been given face lifts recently.

As far as the politics involved, why does Stellantis continue to invest in the United States? Our economy is in a free fall and only the Easter Bunny knows for sure who is running the show. Stellantis continues to buy EV components from Turkey for their LCVs.

 

[pumadog]

Modern: Proper BEV version, drive assistance, infotainment. But I didn't compare ICE engines and space.
Nice looking: Looks good enough for driving the passenger version as a family car. Not but-ugly like the current Doblo, specially pre-facelift.

But what does this mean for the ProMaster City? The PSA minivans are not made for the US.

 

[patfromigh]

Proper BEV versions of all the Stellantis LCVs are hopefully in the pipeline. Currently a vehicle is pulled from line and sent elsewhere for the EV powertrain installation. This isn't a criticism because right now the volumes don't justify the investment needed to do everything on the line. The new Fiat 500 shows the way forward for a modern ground up BEV design. The platforms which are hopefully on the way, along with enough battery manufacturing capacity, will then justify the tooling costs for in house BEV production. It will be interesting to see what the next generation of vans will be like. Will there be utilitarian commercial versions like the Doblo?

Personally, I would like to see a next generation Fiorino (the Euro version) based on the new Fiat 500e platform. The current Fiorino has found much success as a light delivery vehicle, even winning fleet orders from a few postal services. A battery electric powertrain makes the most sense in an urban LCV. The technology stops making sense in a 5 ton Hummer EV.

I don't know what the next Ram ProMaster City will be like, or even where it will come from. if it doesn't have some sort of electrification under the hood it will not be very successful. Consumers may have short memories, but commercial fleet managers sure don't.

 

[ScramFan]

My problem isn't with badge engineering. It is with mediocre products. The Tofas built Doblo/PMC is the superior product. How do you define modern? The departing product was designed and built with alternative fuels/powertrains in mind. It has more variations for a wider range of commercial applications, and it outperforms the Spanish built vans. "Nice looking" is undermined by the full size vans although they have been given face lifts recently.

As far as the politics involved, why does Stellantis continue to invest in the United States? Our economy is in a free fall and only the Easter Bunny knows for sure who is running the show. Stellantis continues to buy EV components from Turkey for their LCVs.

I wonder if Ram might replace the Doblo based van with a Scudo based van.

Just a thought.

 

[patfromigh]

I wonder if Ram might replace the Doblo based van with a Scudo based van.

Just a thought.

If Ram doesn't go with a Latin American design built in Mexico, Stellantis should come up with a van designed to replace both the Chrysler Pacifica minivan and Ram PMC built here. According to the article here in Mopar Insiders, all the vans smaller than the full size share the same K9 architecture. This includes the Scudo.

 

[Deckard Cain]

The bigger picture of this to me is that Stellantis is breaking aways from FCA's previous partnership with Tofas. Which makes sense in a production PoV. Stellantis has plenty of capacity in their factories to be used to be producing cars in partnerships outside their factories.
This to me also suggests that the Tipo successor will be EMP2 or CMP based. Which will mean that it will be an inferior product with a more cramped interior and with the Craptech engines from PSA origin, since they seem to be avoiding using the more modern GSE engines in Europe.

 

[pumadog]

I'd understand to leave Tofas behind. But there's no direct Tipo successor on the horizon, right? As the current car is from 2015 and a budget model, I'd expect them to stretch it at least to 2025. In the mean time STLA Small might be here. Even CMP v2 will have different engine options than the current version.

Not to forget: 1. Fiat won't offer a pure ICE for any new model in Europe, only hybrids and BEV. So no current PSA engine to be used. 2. As the Tychy SUVs (CMP v2) were planned already before the merger, I could very well see GSE engines in them. Why not in bigger models as well? I don't think the rebadging of vans is an indication.