Chrysler: No News is Good News

Today’s the day automakers reveal their US new car sales numbers for June. For the last umpteen years, Chrysler has greeted the gloaming with a conference call with jobbing journos and anxious analysts: a spinmeisterfest wherein ChryCo would attempt to explain away their hemorrhaging bottom line with talk of The Next Big Thing (electric minivans!). Ah, but this is NEW Chrysler (a.k.a. Fiatsler). The Italian stallion running the US taxpayer-supported company has decreed the American part of his fiefdom should stay shtum on its stinking, sinking sales. (I guess he missed GM CEO Fritz Henderson’s transparency pledge.) In fact, Ohio.com reports that Chrysler’s top suits have said anything about anything since the company emerged from bankruptcy. All except the boss, of course, who told Bloomberg that ChryCo’s cash burn is returning to simmer. Oh, Sergio!

“We are still burning cash, but it’s slowed down by far,” Marchionne told Bloomie’s yesterday. “The question is how quickly we can stop the bleeding. That is priority No. 1.”

OK, signore, spill! I mean, we’re paying for this right? So tell us how you’re doing and what you’re gonna do. Fair’s fair, yes?

“It would be very useful for the public, and the people who have funded us, including the taxpayers, to know how we’re doing,” he said. Marchionne said he’s working with the US Treasury to decide what information Chrysler might report and when to release it.

By the end of the month, Marchionne wants to decide how the partnership will manage its Dodge and Alfa Romeo brands, which he sees as American and European counterparts.

“The level of competition between these two brands is tremendous because they are both going after the same customer,” Marchionne said. “Dodge is the American muscle car, while Alfa Romeo is the European muscle car. How we dovetail these two brands is very important.”

That’s what he’s worried about? We are so screwed. Meanwhile (yet not entirely unrelated), the Wall Street Journal reports that those Chrysler dealers that remain are having trouble securing vehicles that actually sell (e.g., Jeep Wrangler and T&C minivan). The WSJ sees the “high-demand” model drought as one of them there “signs of stability.” And then coughs-up the real deal.

While it had less than a 40-day supply of a few vehicles, including the Wrangler, at the end of May, according to Autodata, it had a glut of others, such as the Dodge Caliber and the Jeep Patriot. Some dealers said they are being forced to buy less-sought-after vehicles from their fellow dealers in order to get a few coveted Wranglers or Town and Countrys.

Plus ça change and all that, only in Italian.