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How do you resolve an issue like electrification? Generally the answer is to think about going again to inner combustion. Automotive Information Europeby way of Italian newspaper Il Corriere Della SeraStellantis has sought quotations from suppliers to extend manufacturing of the Fiat 500e on the electrical mini-car maker's Mirafiori plant in Italy to 100,000 items yearly, the report stated. The twist within the plot is that plant representatives instructed ANE that the extra manufacturing might be for the ICE-powered 500, not the battery-electric model.
Look, Fiat has three challenges with the five hundred. The primary is that the 500e just isn’t reaching the manufacturing ranges demanded by the dad or mum firm, 90,000 items per 12 months; Gross sales have been within the 77,000-unit vary over the previous two years. The second is that the ICE-powered 500, in-built Tychy, Poland, and nonetheless a 17-year-old mini automotive that’s barely smaller than the 500e, can solely be offered in Europe till June; That the five hundred would violate the identical cybersecurity guidelines which might be driving the Porsche Cayman, Boxster and Macan off the European market. The third is nationwide satisfaction: Italy and the employees on the Mirafiori plant need to keep excessive manufacturing figures from the nation's solely mass-market automaker, and nobody is bound the 500e will be capable to try this.
Therefore exploring the price of options. One thought – with emphasis being positioned on the truth that it's solely an thought – is to re-engineer the electric-specific 500e platform to just accept a mild-hybrid fuel engine. The Mirafiori plant will nonetheless construct the 500e, and can add 100,000 items of the gas-powered 500. In Europe, the Gasser 500 nonetheless makes numbers. Transportation business JATO Dynamics stated Fiat offered 108,943 items of the ICE-powered 500, together with the Abarth mannequin.
If Stellantis deems it value spending the cash, the rumored engine candidate is the 1.0-liter Firefly three-cylinder used within the sister Panda mini automotive, making 69 horsepower in that utility.
Based on observers, the cost-benefit calculation runs up towards a minimum of a number of hurdles, one being that if Stellantis goes forward with the plan, the ensuing automotive gained't hit the market till late 2025, maybe two years later. Fiat hasn't backed down from its acknowledged objective of changing into the one EV maker in Europe by 2030, with simply 4 years left for a brand new, gas-powered 500 to pay for itself, at most. On the optimistic facet, the 500e platform is seemingly an evolution of the platform used for the now defunct Alfa Romeo Mito, which was designed earlier than the merger that created Stellantis, ANE Having stated that, the 500e is constructed on the identical traces that have been used to create the ICE-powered Mito.
Stellantis didn’t deny the report, however didn’t touch upon it. In the meantime, the automaker has stated it should develop Polish manufacturing of the prevailing gas-powered 500 till the tip of June to fill the vendor pipeline. After that, the Gasser 500 will head to the Stellantis facility in Algeria, the place it is going to be constructed on the market within the Center East and Africa, and Stellantis has another choice about what to do in Europe.