Fiat hopes new 500X pulls brand out of sales slump - Detroit Free Press
It also doesn't help that -- until June -- Fiat dealers could only offer three cars: The Fiat 500 minicar, the all-electric 500e and the quirky, polarizing 500L. What’s more, the 500 was designed in Italy for Europeans and was adapted for... The result: Fiat’s annual sales have plateaued at about 44,000 cars annually for the past three years and have dropped 13% during the first seven months of this year to 25,033. “The brand suffers from the same symptoms of all of the other brands... “Even vehicles as large as the Ford Focus or Chevrolet Sonic have experienced sales declines and plant downtime. At a combined 30 miles per gallon, the Fiat 500 isn’t the most fuel efficient car its size, but Americans typically become more interested in small cars when gas prices are high and lose interest when gas prices are low. “Coming into the year, we didn’t expect gas prices to fall off the cliff, which shifted segments drastically, and unfortunately, drastically away from where we play,” said Jason Stoicevich, head of the Fiat brand in North America. Now, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is pinning its hopes on the arrival of the Fiat 500X -- a small crossover made in Italy but designed with Americans in mind -- to pull the brand out of its sales slump. Source: www.freep.com
