¿Será Fiat la Dacia de Stellantis? Respondemos a esta pregunta / Review en español | coches.net

How are you friends, how are you, Fiat will be the dacia of stel antis, good question, right? Well, we are going to try to answer it from several initial premises, the first being the recent presentation of the Italian brand's plans by its CEO Olivier Franois, which included a series of new developments that will arrive in the coming years and that seem to direct Fiat towards the market segments in which Dacia currently dominates. The second is the change experienced by Dacia itself in the last decade, a brand that has gone from being openly low cost to becoming in what the Romanian firm itself calls a car manufacturer with nothing superfluous and the third is the fit of Fiat in a conglomerate as large and complex as stel antis in which there are already other generalist brands such as Citroen and Opel and in which They move interests that go far beyond the merely industrial ones. It will be Fiat the dacia of stel antis. We are going to try to respond to [Music] that Olivier Franois, the coo of Fiat, presented online and through an ingenious video published on the same day as the Geneva Motor Show. five concept cars from what should be the manufacturer's range for the next 5 years franois did it from the small Italian town of ginevra with v explaining that while some presented their great novelties at the Geneva show with b he did it in Italy and from a small town bar with the locals as witnesses to presenting your news when everyone is in the room that was once the most important in the world, it is vulgarly called against programming but against programming To whom Renault and its new Renault 5 etec if franois had presented a new 500 perhaps but not to the Chinese brands mg and bid present in Geneva and that focused on their new Premium brands Nor because neither Lancia nor Alfa Romeo nor DS are their negotiated rather franois against programmed to another brand that was presented in Geneva with two Dacia world novelties that made the public aware of the new Duster and the remodeling of the electric Spring and if we analyze the products that Olivier Francois mentioned in his nice video from deep Italy we will see some coincidences Let's go with them, the first model is the Fiat City car, a car inspired by the Panda but larger than the Panda, a model with a simple and practical philosophy with a very Italian design but with Airs of Sub and curiously painted in the same Dacia corporate green. coincidence may Fiat announced this car for 2024 and will present it in July coinciding with its 125th anniversary and will be a foundational car The first stone of a new Fiat Francois said of the car that it will combine practicality in the city with an elevated driving position a robust appearance and a spacious cabin for weekend outings sounds familiar to you, we already have the first serious rival to the dacia sandero stepway, the sandero that sells the most with a Matiz that francois announced that there will be combustion versions of this car but also electric versions one week That's it the time it took Denise Lebot, the CEO of Dacia, to confirm automotive news, the Bible of the European industry, that the next generation of the Sandero that will be launched in 2026 will also have an electric version. Coincidentally, I think not, the CEO of Fiat also presented three other models called fastback pickup and sub three cars from the same family with different bodies in their final part but with a shared front. And of course on the same platform the French manager spoke of a new single platform for the entire Fiat range with multiple common elements from the front to the doors, passing through the dashboard or of course all the power plants with and without a plug. And he placed special emphasis on pointing out the markets to which these three models are directed. Latin America, where, notice, it is one of the leading brands in Africa, with the Maghreb as the main one. Middle East market And yes also Europe but in addition and at the end of those three cars two point directly to two models that are sold in South America in the Middle East and in certain African countries under the Renault brand But what are Dacia models? Obviously, the Dacia Dter and its pickup variant, the Oroc, which has not reached Europe, these three cars will replace low-cost development and production models that Fiat already manufactures and sells in those markets. The Sub Pulse, the Strada pickup, which is the car. best-selling in Brazil and the recently launched fastback crossover with notable success in Latin American markets, what Fiat intends is to use the Dacia recipe for its range of emerging markets, that is, a simple and economical common platform for all models and the possibility of equip it with any type of engine and be it hybrid or electric combustion depending on the market and demand and continue competing with equal weapons with the Dacia models, whether they are called that or have a rhombus on the nose, finally the last model presented at the conference by Olivier Franois is the Fiat Camper, a family-style and sub-type car with cubic lines defined again as a large panda, that is, a car with the same platform and engines as the rest but clearly placed in the C segment for those customers who still want a simple car at an attractive price but who need it bigger and I will add that with more added value for the brand we are defining the Fiat Camper but also of course the great launch of dacia for 2025 the vixter that dacia under the Renault brand in In some cases it is one of Fiat's great rivals in non-European markets where the Italian brand is present. It is evident as are Nissan Hyundai Kia Toyota or Volkswagen or Cherry or bid or mg or Don feng brands that are easily entering the market without industry own with cheap cars with which we also have to compete in price dacia achieves it So Fiat must follow the same path if it does not want to lose its position in markets such as those in North Africa or Latin America the second circumstance is the change in dacia's philosophy In recent years, the Romanian brand began, especially in Europe, as a low- cost brand. In the definition of its models, only the sales price mattered and everything was aimed at obtaining the most economical rate so that the cars were as ugly as the first Logan that They used platforms already discontinued by Renault and the cheapest engines of the group or that their equipment was minimal without air conditioning or without electric windows was the least important thing Dacia wanted to make the cheapest cars on the market and designed them with that obsession in mind that, however, already This is not the case, competing on price while giving up equipment and quality has two drawbacks. The first is that it is classified as the minimum option, the one purchased by those who cannot afford more. So if someone, making a big or small effort, reaches Another thing is that the second one stops buying from you is that when you go at price and only at price you conquer a certain market but with a minimum profit per unit. And that in order to ensure the profitability of the company is a huge risk if everything goes well you win but you win very little and if something goes wrong you lose Dacia in recent years therefore it has changed Philosophy now it no longer sells only price its cars are aesthetically more beautiful it uses modern platforms the current models have the same chassis as the Renault Clio capturo arcana for example It has improved the equipment Although including only what it considers that an average driver needs, it has begun a timid process of electrification with the hybrid jogger and duster and the electric Spring and has reached leadership in many markets with balanced products that are still economical because They are designed to be Dacia's, they are no longer only bought by price and have gone from being an almost desperate purchase to a reasonable logical purchase for people who do not want to spend more than necessary and who get a car that allows them to do everything you want to do with your Fiat car that, by tradition, for relevance for image, especially in Italy, could not be assimilated in any way to the original philosophy of Dacia, you can, on the contrary, embrace this new idea of ​​the functional car that complies with honesty and that It is reasonably priced to make the Panda the benchmark and expand the idea to the entire range. That seems to be Fiat's goal, with of course that hackneyed touch of Italian design so marketable, whether you like it or not, Dacia will never have the same. To date, only Renault had dared to take on Dacia when you were talking a decade ago with PSA executives who said they wanted to resurrect Talbot to compete with Dacia or Volkswagen when it was suggested that perhaps Skoda could take on that role and you asked why it wasn't They launched to compete directly with Dacia, the answer was always the same because Dacia is already there and if Dacia sells with very little margin, the moment we start competing with it, we will have to sell at its price and competing and competing will mean cutting the margin. Neither we nor they will be able to do that basically because there will be no margin, now there is, Dacia is a leading brand in many markets, it is a profitable brand that is going from strength to strength and although it continues to sell cheaper than the rest, it generates a significant margin in For each car sold, the time has therefore come to compete with Dacia and with all groups advancing in some cases like a headless chicken towards electrification. Dacia will have an increasingly larger pie in the markets where electric cars are further behind and that pie esteel antis wants a part and Fiat can be the key and finally we are left with the fit of Fiat itself in stel antis after the merger of psa and fca in stel antis a lot of brands have come together that it has been decided to keep If Tabares has even decided to resurrect the old age that was in a vegetative state How is it going to do without Fiat, closing the historic Italian brand would be absurd. Fiat leads the Italian market with the Panda, true, but it leads it. Oh, and with the Sandero second. By the way, and it has an implementation Fiat is very strong in markets where the rest of the group's brands are weaker, such as Latin America, but we have to find a fit for Fiat, it is not enough that it continues to pull the 500 effect, a car that has been on the market for almost two decades is not such a small matter. to create a new generalist range in a group where Opel and Citroen are also trying to find their niche and where Peugeot, despite its attempts to get closer to the Premium segment, is also still a generalist brand, there is overbooking of generalists in ex lantis and they all have their main market in Europe So there is no clear gap for Fiat there Olivier Franois' idea is therefore not at all crazy in Europe Fiat will eliminate the 500, the gasoline one because it is falling in demand and the electric one because it has not been the success it was expected to be. I expected and above all because it uses a platform that, since it is not shared, is difficult to amortize, the type will also liquidate a car that has fulfilled its role and will replace it with that new average family will keep the Panda until 2027 and the new 600 product already 100% exel antis and that perhaps would not have been launched if it had been adopted earlier the new path will continue in production but will add a new B-segment car that sandero that we were talking about At first to gain volume and launch a csub for emerging markets but also for Europe And Europe continues to be a playing field in which Fiat, as the soul of the Italian industry, must remain present in the political games of recent months with President Macron playing matchmaker between Stellantis and Renault to the stupor of the Americans and with President Meloni threatening to buy a part of Estel Antis to play the same role as France in decision-making and guarantee that Fiats continue to be manufactured in Italy have shown that within this landis there is latent tension Yes, Carlos Tabares remains undaunted with his plan to put each brand in its place and maintains confidence in the directors he appointed at the time, among them Olivier Franois, who has approved and financed this new brand positioning for Fiat Tares, who is the one who really has the last word in all this. imbroglio seems to be calm Although I must tell you that if I had received 44 million euros in benefit payments this year like him, I would probably also be fore