Chrysler has too many SUVs. That's what Jim Press, the company president recently poached from Toyota, thinks of the lineup he and his Cerberus Capital Management partners have inherited. According to Press, the company could make do offering about half the number of SUV models it currently sells.
Since acquiring Chrysler, Cerberus has been working hard to turn the carmaker around, focusing on improving the quality of their interiors, dropping unpopular models, and eliminating redundancies. Their latest plan is to consolidate dealerships, so in the future all three of the company's brands will be sold under one roof. However doing so highlights the fact that Chrysler currently sells many models that compete against each other, such as the Liberty and Nitro or the near-identical Dodge and Chrysler minivans.
"We're going to stop overlapping, we're going to bring everything under one roof," said Press, emphasizing that by eliminating models that cannibalize each other's sales the maker will be able to focus on developing cars for segments they don't currently cover. The company has already announced plans to drop the unpopular Magnum, Pacifica, and PT Cruiser convertible, and Press' remarks indicate the axe will fall next on some of the eleven (you read that right, eleven) different SUVs sold under Chrysler, Dodge, and Jeep brands. Ultimately Press hopes to reduce the total number of models offered by Chrysler from 28 to 19.
In an effort to stem its losses, under Cerberus' ownership Chrysler has already eliminated thousands of jobs and plans to shut down for two weeks this summer. Hopefully getting rid of overlapping models will finally help the automaker return to profitability. And in case you were wondering, the 11 SUVs sold by the Chrysler group are as follows: Durango, Nitro, Journey, Cherokee, Liberty, Compass, Patriot, Commander, Wrangler, Aspen, and Pacifica.
Source: Bloomberg News