Revamp: Chrysler’s pickup gears up for facelift

Sticks to steel, as opposed to lighter aluminum options .


Reuters August 22, 2014

DETROIT:


Chrysler Group is planning an extensive facelift of its full-size Ram 1500 pickup in spring 2017, but has no firm plans to follow rivals General Motors and Ford Motor Co in replacing steel body panels with aluminum until a complete redesign after 2020, industry sources told Reuters.


While Ford and GM are shifting to lighter aluminum body panels to dramatically reduce the weight of their best-selling full-size pickups - this fall and in the fall of 2018, respectively - Chrysler is planning to stick mainly with steel when it updates the big Ram pickup in 2017. Chrysler is thereby sidestepping the risk of alienating commercial users, many of which believe steel is more rugged and durable than aluminum.

The two larger automakers can spread the investment over more vehicles. Ford sells nearly twice as many pickups as Chrysler, which is a unit of Italy’s Fiat SpA.

All three automakers are dependent on big trucks and SUVs for the lion’s share of their profits. At Chrysler, those vehicles account for nearly 100% of pretax earnings.

Fiat Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne, who also heads Chrysler, told investors in May that the use of weight-saving aluminum at Chrysler “is better suited in other vehicles than pickup trucks.”

At the time, Chrysler confirmed that it would update the light-duty Ram 1500 in 2017. The current Ram 1500 was introduced in late 2008 as a 2009 model and has received several significant upgrades since then.

However, the five-year future product plan shared with investors in May made no mention of when the Ram would receive a full redesign.

Industry sources familiar with the company’s plans said Chrysler is not likely to undertake a full redesign of the Ram before 2021 at the earliest.

Chrysler spokesman Rick Deneau on Thursday said, “We can’t comment beyond what was in the five-year plan.”

Asked as to whether or when Chrysler might incorporate more aluminum in future versions of the Ram, he said “we haven’t made any decisions.”

By electing not to invest as much as its Detroit rivals in aluminum, Chrysler will have to rely on other measures, including improving its engines and transmissions, to meet increasingly stringent U.S. emissions and fuel economy standards for trucks, beginning in 2018.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 23rd, 2014.

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