Stellantis, when it was still just Fiat-Chrysler, scrapped any plans to introduce new cars around 2016, spelling the end of decades of Chrysler cars, and possibly leading to similar segment abandonment from Ford and General Motors. Even the long-serving 300 is about to exit production at the end of the year to make room for the Chrysler Airflow crossover. The company won’t have any cars left to hang its hat on. Heck, until the Airflow makes its debut for 2025, Chrysler will only have the Pacifica left. So where does that leave the future of cars?
During a ‘fireside chat’ at the Reuters’ Automotive USA summit, Chrysler’s Feuell confirmed the 300 nameplate could return yet again in the future as a luxury sedan. Here she confirms cars aren’t dead, even though the company she operates is killing its last car, as reported by the Detroit News.
“It made me kind of sad to see a lot of the OEMs walking away from the car segment,” Feuell said on stage. “And if you think about what customers are looking for in an electric vehicle, yes, they want range. They want accessible charging. They want something that’s affordable. And from my perspective, I think we’ll see a resurgence in the car segment.”
Chrysler could theoretically begin a campaign of captive imports from its Stellantis brandmates in Europe to pump up its product offerings on the cheap. The DS 9 E-tense, for example, would give Chrysler a large luxury plug-in hybrid sedan. An entry-level quasi-crossover hatchback could be added to the lineup with the Fiat Tipo Cross hybrid. Tell me you wouldn’t be psyched about a 508 Peugeot Sport Engineered coming to the U.S. as a Chrysler-badged performance PHEV sedan. And that’s without mentioning any of the myriad variants of Opel Astra.
Come on Stellantis, you have a great opportunity to really pump some good product into the legendary Chrysler name. If you actually believe in cars, be they hatch, sedan, wagon, or coupe, you owe it to the world and yourself to actually back that up with some action.