Electric Fiat 500 Destined to Be Loss Leader

Autoblog Green just made an interesting observation from the sidelines of a general meeting at Fiat S.p.A. Ceo of Chrysler and Fiat, Sergio Marchionne, made some comments that indicated that not only is the electric Fiat 500 a huge loss leader at $10,000 per car, but that Fiat does not sound like they have any interest in trying to make it a profitable car or sell it on a large scale.

This $10,000 loss per vehicle is despite the fact that the Fiat 500 EV will be sold for approximately three times the amount of the same car with an internal combustion engine which is targeted at $15,500. Yeah, let those numbers sink in for a second. This is a fairly expensive car which will still see the manufacturer lose about 20% of its retail price with each sale.

Fiat chairman, John Elkmann has stated that electric cars get too much attention as it is stating that there is “900 million vehicles with internal combustion engine vehicles in the world and less than 100,000 EVs.” This all leaves us asking the question, why is Fiat even bothering to make the Fiat 500 EV in the first place?

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