Acknowledging that a number of mistakes were made in the development and launch of the 2014 Jeep Cherokee, Chrysler Group CEO Sergio Marchionne vowed to learn from those mistakes and never repeat them.
"What we've learned is that we'll never repeat it. We're never going to take a plant down and be out of the market for over a year," Marchionne told analysts in a conference call on Wednesday. In August of 2012, Chrysler shut down the body shop section of their Toledo assembly facility and spent a half billion dollars to prepare for Cherokee production. "We were just naked in 2013," in the mid-sized SUV segment after production of the Jeep Liberty ended in 2012. The Liberty had been the Jeep brand's third best seller at 75,483 units, about 5% of Chrysler's total sales volume in 2012.
Deliveries of the all new '14 Cherokee didn't start until last week, four months after production started at the Toledo Assembly Complex.
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Sergio Marchionne in 2011, announcing a $500 million investment to build the new Cherokee at the Toledo Assembly Complex.
The Jeep Cherokee went into production June 24, about a month later than originally planned, at Chrysler's Toledo Assembly Complex, but didn't start being delivered to dealers until last week. The new Cherokee features an all-new 9 speed automatic transmission Chrysler makes under license from ZF and a unique disconnecting rear driveshaft. Though production had started, Chrysler had apparently not completely refined the software that integrates the transmission, driveshaft and the two available engines. The engines were also first applications, new displacement versions of Chrysler's four cylinder Tigershark and six cylinder Pentastar powerplants. With all that new hardware to integrate in an all new car, Marchionne said, "We were naïve that it would be a seamless introduction."
"What made this unnecessarily unique and painful is that we were introducing a never-installed transmission," Marchionne said. He added that concerns that the new Cherokee and its transmission are too complex are "probably exaggerated," defending the new gearbox. "That transmission has all the elements that we feel are essential to our front-wheel-drive/all-wheel-drive portfolio," Marchionne said, citing the fact that it will also be featured in the next generation Chrysler 200 sedan, which will launch in the second quarter of 2014.
from The Truth About Cars http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com
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