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Fiat Chrysler CEO: Please Don't Buy Our Electric Car
schwit1 (797399) writes "The CEO of Fiat Chrysler said he hopes that people don't buy his company's electric car, the Fiat 500e, which he is forced to sell at a loss because of state and federal mandates. 'I hope you don't buy it because every time I sell one it costs me $14,000,' Sergio Marchionne told the audience at the Brookings Institute during a discussion of the auto bailout. 'I'm honest enough to tell you that I will make the car, I'll make it available which is my requirement but I will sell the limit of what I need to sell and not one more,' said Marchionne. Fiat Chrysler produces two Fiat 500s. The gas-powered Fiat 500 has a base price of $17,300. The electric Fiat 500e runs $32,650. In his candid remarks, Marchionne blamed regulations set in place in California and by President Obama." (Also at USA Today.) If they find they're selling too many for comfort, couldn't they raise the price?
Or they can work harder at making them cheaper. This CEO is very short sighted.
Do you think in this cut throat world that a CEO isn't already exhausting every resource he can muster in order to cap the damages on a loss before saying don't give us your business?
Modern companies are also very risk adverse. They prefer to find ways to generate revenue that don't require actual research and development that may not pan out in a way that makes them money. It's easier to build market share by using marketing to deceive customers, and the legal system to eliminate competition (like patent lawsuits over things that are hardly special), rather than try and innovate and win customers by actually making better products than your competitors.