Rinaldo Rinolfi may just have something up his sleeve to make Fiat SpA’s partnership with Chrysler Group LLC work.

The 62-year-old engineer, who designed the Fiat diesel engine in the 1990s that became an industry standard and powers some of Europe’s most energy-efficient cars, has a new invention he says will cut fuel consumption by at least 10 percent. His work is at the heart of the Fiat technology that Chrysler said was worth $10 billion when they formed their alliance.

“We needed to do something radical with the gasoline engine,” Rinolfi said in an interview at Fiat’s research center in the northern city of Turin, the company’s headquarters.

Chief Executive Officer Sergio Marchionne, seeking to turn around Chrysler after two previous owners failed, has engineers flying between Detroit and Italy every other week on the project as Fiat prepares to offer models that meet stricter consumption and emissions levels required by President Barack Obama.

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Chrysler Group LLC employees officially met the new boss earlier this week–and he’s not anything like the old boss – which is probably a very good thing, indeed. Chrysler is now run by Fiat, and the first item on the new agenda is profitability—something the old bosses didn’t seem to be all that concerned about.

In his first day on the job, CEO Sergio Marchionne announced sweeping changes including his senior management team and a reorganization that will force every brand to be profitable on its own.

This is the age of bailouts and acquisitions. And a bailout is a weird thing, because it’s a happy moment, yet so many questions arise. Will it be a success? Whose heads will roll? Who will get hired to turn things around? It represents a new beginning, but one burning question keeps coming up—will it be better this time or will the mistakes of the past repeat themselves?

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The future for Chrysler LLC remains unknown after a hearing to sell its assets to a group headed by Fiat SpA ended late Wednesday evening without resolution.

During testimony in a packed Manhattan courtroom Wednesday, the value of the Auburn Hills automaker was central to arguments heard in U.S. bankruptcy court here. Lawyers for Chrysler said the sale of the assets was critical to the company’s future and that without approval by June 15, it would result in the liquidation of the company.

How will this play out? Will Fiat get what it wants? I believe they will, primarily because they seem to be the only company willing to take on Chrysler. Sure, Fiat will end up getting a lot of concessions. But, that’s what you get when you’re buying a ticket on the Titanic. If Fiat is willing to take on this problem child, they deserve some major breaks, the way I see it.

The hearing was to continue today before Judge Arthur Gonzalez. If he approves the sale of the assets, the new company, Chrysler Group LLC, will prepare to start operations to build and sell Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep vehicles as soon as possible.

Fiat, Italian auto giant who seems to be slowly absorbing every small-fish automaker they can find seems to be gearing up for building more models fueled by compressed natural gas (CNG). Normally, this wouldn’t make too much of a difference to us over here in the good ol’ U.S. of A. but with Fiat soon to be marching down the aisle with Chrysler, it’s worth paying attention to. CNG is mainly used in fleet vehicles in America. Lots of taxis, lots of cop cars, lots of delivery trucks run on CNG. There has been talk (mainly from oil company shills) that it would better from an infrastructure standpoint to offer more CNG fueling points, than to screw around with stuff like EV charging stations or working on hydrogen fueling. If there were to be more CNG filling stations, that would leave Fiat, and therefore Chrysler, sitting pretty.

In some parts of Europe, CNG is a popular fuel for several automakers. There are already CNG versions of the Grande Punto, Panda, Punto, as well as the Multipla and Doblò available from Fiat, and the Punto and Panda are both expected to form the basis of new small cars for Chrysler.

It’s not that CNG is without its merits. Compressed natural gas offers some advantages over gasoline and diesel as a fuel. It has lower CO2 emissions and emits practically no particulates.

More options are always better.

Source: AutoBlogGreen

Photo from Flickr user Familie Gevaerts

Let’s hear that old Spaghetti Western theme music. You know, from those Clint Eastwood films like “Hang ‘Em High” and “For A Few Dollars More”. Because the Italians are coming to the rescue, in the form of automaker Fiat–here to save the day for Chrysler!

It was announced today that Fiat SpA Chief Executive Officer Sergio Marchionne plans to run Chrysler LLC after the Auburn Hills automaker emerges from bankruptcy, a company source confirmed.  Chrysler Chairman and CEO Robert Nardelli said that he would step down.

Marchionne has discussed his plan to take over as Chrysler CEO with officials from the U.S. Treasury, which will have the biggest presence, at least initially, on the board of a new company comprising Chrysler assets.

Marchionne, who became Fiat’s chief executive in 2004 and returned the struggling Italian automaker to profit, wants to combine Fiat’s auto business and its prospective interest in Chrysler with GM Europe’s operations, which include the Opel, Vauxhall and Saab brands.

GM declined to comment on the negotiations with Fiat.