Fiat Chrysler CEO 100% sure carmaker can survive tech disruption

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is a “house of brands” and that ensures it will be one of the few traditional automakers to survive the disruption the car industry is facing from the rise of electric and self-driving cars, CEO Mike Manley said.

Manley’s vision, like that of his iconic predecessor Sergio Marchionne, is based on the view that distinctive brands such as Jeep, Alfa Romeo and Maserati give the Italian-American company an advantage over mass-market producers.

Manley, 55, who succeeded Marchionne in July a few days before he died, is under pressure to deliver a turnaround of the automaker’s unprofitable Asia business and revamp its European operations amid massive investments needed to guide Fiat Chrysler into the era of self-driving electric cars and new mobility services.

"I’m 100 percent sure” that Fiat Chrysler will be able to survive because "we are fundamentally a house of brands," Manley said in an interview last month at the company’s Turin headquarters for a new biography of Marchionne.

In his last sit-down interview in January 2018 at his mansion in Michigan, Marchionne predicted that automakers have less than a decade to reinvent themselves or risk becoming commodities amid a seismic shift in how vehicles are powered, driven and purchased.

The industry will divide into segments, with premium brands managing to hold onto their cachet while mere people-transporters struggle to cope with the onslaught from disruptors such as Tesla and Google’s Waymo, Marchionne said at the time. He warned that the namesake Fiat brand is the one more at risk of being “commoditized” inside its portfolio of products.

"I don’t think that we have any brand that will fit into a bland character," Manley said in the interview. He believes the Fiat brand has a future, citing the success of its iconic 500 minicar, which posted record deliveries after a decade on the market. "Our brands have shown they will be able to survive."