FILE PHOTO: A Fiat Chrysler Automobiles sign is seen at the U.S. headquarters in Auburn Hills, Michigan,
TURIN, Italy (Reuters) – Fiat Chrysler plans to invest 700 million euros ($788 million) in an electric makeover of its iconic Fiat 500, a top executive said on Thursday, as the automaker seeks to move on from its failed bid to merge with France’s Renault.
FCA’s chief operating officer for Europe, Middle East and Africa, Pietro Gorlier, announced the investment – the Italian-American company’s biggest single bet on an electric vehicle – at its Mirafiori plant in Turin, northern Italy.
“The plan is confirmed,” Gorlier told reporters, when asked if FCA’s investment in electric vehicle technology would remain unchanged after its $35 billion plan to merge with Renault, an electric car pioneer, collapsed last month.
He said FCA would invest the 700 million euros to build a new production line at Mirafiori to turn out 80,000 of the new 500 BEV, its first battery electric vehicle to be marketed in Europe after a smaller, initial foray in the United States.
Production will start in the second quarter of 2020, with capacity to be expanded later, Gorlier said.
The 500 compact car is one of the group’s most famous models, launched by then Fiat in the late 1950s and quickly becoming a symbol of Italian urban design.
The 700 million euros investment is part of a plan announced last year to invest 5 billion euros in Italy up to 2021.
In abandoning its merger offer for Renault, FCA blamed French politics for scuttling what would have been a landmark deal to create the world’s third-biggest automaker.
($1 = 0.8878 euros)
(By Giulio Piovaccari; Editing by Mark Bendeich and Mark Potter)
(Reuters) – Boeing Co said on Tuesday its deliveries fell about 37% to 239 planes in the first half of 2019, hurt by the grounding of its best-selling 737 MAX jets, putting it on track to lose the world’s biggest planemaker title after eight years.
Boeing’s deliveries lagged those of European rival Airbus SE, which handed over as many as 389 planes in the same period, up 28% from a year earlier, according to sources.
A new problem identified with the grounded MAX jets last month has delayed the aircraft’s entry into service until at least the end of September, disrupting schedules for airline operators and possibly adding to costs for Boeing.
The American planemaker’s net orders for the first six months was in the negative, with a total of minus 119 net orders. Boeing had minus 125 net orders as of the end of May.
Deliveries of the MAX aircraft were stopped in March, a few days after an Ethiopian Airlines crash killed all 157 people on board. Since then, Boeing has not reported any new order for the MAX planes.
Last month, British Airways-owner IAG signed a letter of intent to order 200 MAXs.
Boeing shares were down 0.5% at $349.4 in morning trade.
(Reporting by Ankit Ajmera in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur and Anil D’Silva)
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian airline Ural Airlines plans to receive the first of 14 previously ordered Boeing-737 MAX aircraft for leasing in December, Interfax news agency reported, citing its chief executive Sergei Skuratov.
Two Boeing MAX aircraft crashed in Ethiopia in March and Indonesia last October, triggering the global grounding of the aircraft. Regulators must approve the fix and new pilot training before the jets can fly again.
“These are good aircrafts. Mistakes have been made, but they are going to be fixed,” Skuratov was quoted as saying by Interfax.
Ural Airlines signed a deal for the leasing of 14 Boeing-737 MAX 8 in the spring of 2018. The delivery was expected between October 2019 and May 2022, Interfax said.
When asked whether the company considered cancelling the deal, Skuratov told the agency that “Boeing has certain advantages: seven hours 45 minutes (of flight) without refueling fully loaded.”
Ural Airlines plans to receive its first Airbus A320neo in August with an additional four jets expected to arrive by the end of 2019, he added.
(Reporting by Polina Devitt,; Editing by William Maclean)
OTTAWA (Reuters) – Airbus SE <AIR.PA> and Boeing Co <BA.N> may pull out of a bidding process to supply Canada with new fighter jets because they say the contest is unfairly tilted towards Lockheed Martin Corp <LMT.N>, two sources with direct knowledge of the situation said on Monday.
The three companies competing with Lockheed Martin’s F-35 jet have already complained about the way the contest is being run, and expressed concern some of the specifications clearly favour the U.S. firm, industry sources have said in recent weeks.
Next week the government is due to release the so-called request for proposals – the final list of requirements – for the 88 new planes it wants to buy. The contract is worth between C$15 billion (£9 billion) and C$19 billion and the planes are due to be delivered between 2025 and the early 2030s.
Boeing and Airbus have now formally written to Ottawa expressing concerns about the current requirements, said two sources familiar with the matter who declined to be identified given the sensitivity of the situation. The fourth bidder is Sweden’s Saab AB <SAABb.ST>.
Pat Finn, the defence ministry’s top official in charge of procurement, confirmed one of the four companies had sent a formal letter but gave no details. The final request for proposals is due out on July 17 and modifications are still being considered, he said.
“We continue to engage all four of them,” he said in a telephone interview. “We have had some comments (such as) ‘If changes are not made in such a place then we would frankly consider possibly not bidding.'”
“We are looking at those very seriously. I can’t say that we will make every change, but as far as we know we continue to have four bidders in the race.”
Airbus declined to comment. Boeing did not respond to a request for comment.
Canada has been trying unsuccessfully for almost a decade to buy replacements for its ageing F-18 fighters. In May, Ottawa changed the rules to allow Lockheed Martin to submit a bid, prompting Boeing to take the unusual step of announcing publicly it was surprised.
“Anyone who is not Lockheed Martin has expressed a very strong view,” said one of the sources. “We have been pretty clear with the government that this is not a request for proposals that lends to our participation.”
At least one firm has expressed unhappiness that the requirements emphasize the ability to carry out first strikes on targets abroad, a strength of the F-35, said the sources.
The government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau insists the competition is not rigged. Finn said the defence ministry also had made changes to the requirements at the request of Boeing, Airbus and Saab.
Canada is part of the international consortium that developed the F-35. The former Conservative administration said in 2010 it would buy 65 of the jets but later scrapped the decision, triggering years of delays.
Trudeau came to power in 2015 vowing not to buy the F-35 on the grounds that it was too costly, but Ottawa has since softened its line.
(Reporting by David Ljunggren in Ottawa; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
FILE PHOTO: A real-size mock of F-35 fighter jet is displayed at Japan International Aerospace Exhibition in Tokyo
July 2 (Reuters) – Automakers including Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV and Hyundai Motor Co on Tuesday reported a rise in U.S. sales for June, lifted by strong demand for sport utility vehicles and trucks.
Automakers have focused on selling the more profitable larger SUVs and trucks and had offered heavy discounts of up to 30% or more on their most popular models in June amid a slowdown in the broader market.
U.S. auto sales are slowing after a long bull-run that has satiated replacement demand.
Fiat Chrysler said its sales rose 1.9% to 206,083 vehicles in June, driven by a 45% surge in sales of its Ram trucks.
Hyundai said its sales rose 1.5% to 64,202 vehicles in the month, boosted by a 36% increase in sales of its Santa Fe sport utility vehicles.
GM and Ford are yet to report their sales numbers.
Mitsubishi Motors North America Inc said its June sales rose 10.5% to 12,317 vehicles due to an increase in sales of its seven-seater Outlander and Eclipse Cross SUV’s.
(Reporting by Ankit Ajmera in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli and James Emmanuel)
CHICAGO, July 1 (Reuters) – Southwest Airlines expects it will have to remove the grounded Boeing Co 737 MAX jets from its flying schedule beyond the current Oct. 1 re-entry date following the discovery of a fresh safety issue, Chief Executive Gary Kelly told employees on Monday.
Last week, Boeing said that it would take until at least September to solve 737 MAX software issues – later than airlines had been expecting – after U.S. aviation regulators uncovered a new problem during simulator sessions.
“I’m sure this will cause us to have to take the MAX out of the schedule beyond Oct. 1,” Kelly said in an internal update, adding that the company would also see “what other modifications we might need to make our plans for this year because it’s obviously extending well beyond what I had hoped.”
Kelly did not elaborate on the possible modifications. So far, the Texas-based airline has tried to substitute its MAX routes with spare aircraft but has still been forced to cancel about 115 daily flights.
American Airlines Group and United Airlines Holdings , the other two U.S. carriers that operate the 737 MAX, have removed the jetliner from their flying schedules until early September.
The three airlines are expected to provide more details on the financial toll of a prolonged MAX grounding during second quarter results later in July.
Boeing’s fast-selling narrowbody was grounded worldwide in March following two deadly crashes within five months.
(Reporting by Tracy Rucinski, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)
July 1 (Reuters) – Lucid Motors said on Monday it hired Tesla Inc’s former vice president of production at its Freemont factory, Peter Hochholdinger, as vice president of manufacturing.
The Newark, California-based electric carmaker in April also named Peter Rawlinson, former chief engineer of Tesla’s Model S, as its chief executive officer.
Lucid, which has more than $1 billion investment from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, was founded in 2007 as Atieva by Sam Weng and Bernard Tse, a former vice president of Tesla.
The company positions itself as being less of a direct competitor to Tesla than with luxury car makers such as Audi or BMW, Rawlinson had said.
Hochholdinger, a former production executive at Volkswagen AG, left Tesla last week after three years with the company. At Tesla, he was tasked with improving production for Tesla’s luxury Model S sedan and Model X sport utility vehicle as well as helping build a cost-effective manufacturing program for the Model 3 sedan.
He was the latest high-profile executive to leave Tesla in the past two years, as the automaker struggles to ramp up production of Model 3, which is seen as crucial for its long-term profitability.
Rawlinson said Hochholdinger’s experience in manufacturing would help the company in launching Lucid Air and other future models.
Tesla is expected to report its second-quarter delivery and production numbers this week.
(Reporting by Vibhuti Sharma in Bengaluru; Editing by James Emmanuel)
July 1 (Reuters) – Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management Inc and Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC on Monday agreed to buy U.S. freight railroad owner Genesee & Wyoming Inc for about $6.4 billion in cash.
Brookfield and GIC’s offer of $112 per share represents a premium of 12 percent to Genesee’s closing price on Friday. Genesee shares were up about 8 percent in trading before the bell.
Including debt, the deal is valued at about 8.4 billion, the companies said in a statement.
Genesee & Wyoming’s revenue have increased at a compound annual growth rate of 16.8% since it floated in the stock market in 1996, rising to $2.3 billion in 2018 from $77.8 million, according to Genesee & Wyoming’s latest annual report.
The company owns a portfolio of 120 short-line railroads, predominantly in North America, with operations in Europe and Australia.
Reuters had reported on the deal on Sunday, citing sources.
The deal, which is expected to close by year end or early 2020, would be the latest big leveraged buyout by Brookfield, which agreed last year to buy Johnson Controls International Plc’s power solutions business for about $13 billion.
Citigroup Global Markets Inc served as the financial adviser to Brookfield and GIC, while BofA Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley & Co LLC advised Genesee.
(Reporting by Ankit Ajmera in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva)
(Reuters) – Ten people were killed on Sunday when their private turboprop airplane crashed into a hangar during takeoff and burst into flames at the municipal airport in Addison, Texas, outside Dallas, an airport official said.
The twin-engine Beechcraft BE-350 King Air was destroyed by fire from the crash, according to Darci Neuzil, deputy director of Addison Airport, a general aviation facility located about 10 miles (17 km) north of downtown Dallas.
She said the plane had been headed for Florida when it took off at about 9 a.m. local time. Nobody on the ground was reported hurt, Neuzil added.
The plane had just lifted off the runway at the south end of the airport when it veered left, dropped its left wing and slammed into the hangar, the Dallas Morning News reported online, citing Addison fire department spokesman Edward Martelle.
There were no survivors among the 10 people who were aboard the aircraft, Neuzil said. Their identities were being kept confidential as authorities worked to notify next of kin.
“It’s a very sad day for Dallas County,” a local judge, Clay Jenkins, told the Dallas Morning News, which reported the plane had been en route to St. Petersburg, Florida. “My prayers are with the families we’re notifying about this tragedy.”
There was no official word on the cause of the crash. CBS News, citing unnamed sources, reported that the plane lost an engine on takeoff.
Video footage of the immediate aftermath showed flames and heavy, dark smoke billowing from the hangar, which according to local media was unoccupied at the time. Still photos posted online also showed a large gash in the side of the building.
Investigators from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board were due to arrive on the scene later in the day, Neuzil told Reuters.
No further details about the circumstances of the crash were immediately available, Neuzil said.
Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles and Daniel Wallis in New York; Editing by Sandra Maler
PARIS, June 28 (Reuters) – Air France-KLM said its separate Air France and KLM airline units would be swapping over some remaining orders from Boeing and Airbus, in a move which Air France KLM said would help its fleet run more efficiently.
The swap means that in the 2021-2023 timeframe, the six remaining Boeing 787 ordered for Air France will be transferred to KLM, and the current 7 Airbus A350-900s on order for KLM will be transferred to Air France.
“This is the first step towards harmonizing and simplifying the Air France-KLM Group fleet at its two major airlines,” said Air France KLM CEO Benjamin Smith.
(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; editing by Michel Rose)
