Sergio Marchionne

FCA’s outspoken CEO, Sergio Marchionne, has been known to make unpopular but frank comments about electric cars and the future of the auto industry. The man in charge of Alfa, Fiat, Chrysler and Jeep, called for its customers not to buy his electric car, the Fiat 500e, because he estimates the company is losing about $10,000 per units.

In a recent interview with Car Magazine, he reiterated his comments and elaborated on how he doesn’t understand how anyone can make money selling electric cars other than to comply with government mandates. He also made some interesting and somewhat confusing comments on Tesla’s success.
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The automotive industry is a capital-intensive industry. Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne knows it and that’s why he is open to work with Google or Apple:

“Google can buy every automaker out of petty cash. And Apple — they made a net profit of $24 billion in one quarter. This is nonsense. What are we defending? What?”

In a not yet released 2-hour interview with Automobile Mag‘s Georg Kache, Marchionne discusses the recent rumors of a FCA partnership with Google for self-driving cars and how the automaker wants to position itself in an industry disrupted by the likes of Apple, Google, Tesla and Uber. 
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We’ve reported on comments by GM and Nissan officials about the recent unveiling of the Tesla Model 3 and the following storm of reservations. While Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn had a normal and decent reaction to the event, GM’s Vice President of Global Propulsion Systems, Dan Nicholson, was significantly less gracious than his colleague.

But now it’s Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne’s turn to comment and he doesn’t disappoint.
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