According to Automotive News, Stellantis is hedging its LG bets by forming an alliance with fellow South Korean battery-maker Samsung SDI; both will make batteries for North American Stellantis vehicles. Samsung SDI makes EV batteries in South Korea, Hungary, and China; it counts BMW and Ford as clients. The plant location is still under review, …
LG, whose batteries are perhaps best known for causing a $2 billion GM recall, is Stellantis’ joint venture partner for a North American battery plant. The well-publicized LG gaffe may have helped Stellantis negotiators quite a bit. The new plant is to start pumping out car batteries in early 2024, with an annual capacity of …
Stellantis is finally making an eight-speed automatic that can be used in hybrid-electric and gasoline-powered vehicles; at the moment, the “4xe” hybrids use ZF-built transmissions. The changes, which affect three plants near or in Kokomo, Indiana—one casting plant and two transmission plants— will cost around $229 million. The eight-speed transmissions Chrysler builds are modified to …
FCA had already started making a strong four-cylinder turbo engine and was near production on a strong turbo six when it merged with Peugeot. So, months later, why are we still seeing Jeeps with low-power four-cylinder engines, and nothing to compete with Ford’s turbo sixes? The answer is production. The Jeep version of the turbo-2.0, …
Ram, probably the main profit driver of Stellantis in North America, has been increasingly popular thanks to its “new-plus-old-generations” sale strategy. In the future, though, electric power may be the key to success; and Ram is apparently set on staying relevant, without losing its character. The cutaway in the Ram EV Day presentation shows a …
Bob Rodger died in 1971, of leukemia, at the height of the muscle car era. Among his contributions to Chrysler was the 300 “letter car” series, hailed by many critics as the absolute best Detroit had to offer—on part with just about anything in the world; and, for that matter, the 200-mph Dodge Charger Daytona. …
The Dodge Challenger and Charger are both offered with a supercharged Hemi in Hellcat and Redeye trim, while the coupe also has the Super Stock trim level. All of these high performance cars, as well as the 2018 Demon, rely on a supercharged 6.2-liter Hemi V8, but the power levels vary from 707 to 840. …
“Who killed the electric car?” asked a movie, some years ago, implying that General Motors deliberately destroyed the rebirth of electrics. The movie ignored Chrysler’s epic electric car program of the same time—a program which sold cars, rather than leasing them, and was something of a success. Made in Plymouth and Dodge versions, the EPIC …
Nearly four years ago, I wrote about the “Tornado,” as the turbocharged inline six-cylinder engine then being development was coded (not after the Jeep engine, but the airplane, in line with other Chrysler engine projects). Insiders were certain that the 5.7 Hemi, which was overdue for upgrades—upgrades which had reportedly been at least partly created, …
The Dodge brothers generally didn’t make trucks; they made cars, and the Graham brothers turned some of them into trucks. Chrysler, acquiring both companies, focused on Dodge for the truck market, which was still too small for more than one corporate brand (Fargo, the Plymouth truck division, was relegated to export duty). Dodge made four …
The 2021 Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Redeye has just started showing up in dealerships around the country. According to the details accompanying this video from Satera Tuning, this is one of just nine that have been delivered, with shop owner and new Redeye owner Jeremy Satera picking the car up earlier this week. For most …
Back in the days when there was still a Chrysler Corporation, engineers started working an a manual transmission that shifted itself—a dual-clutch automatic of the style later produced by Fiat, Ford, and others. At the time, such transmissions had never been successfully used in light-duty vehicles, but were used by heavy-duty trucks. The transmission was …
