After the deal involving PSA and GM’s European brands, the latter being bought by the Peugeot maker, several rumors about a possible merger between Fiat Chrysler and VW Group started spreading. However, according to USA Today, Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne claimed that these are “unrealistic dreams”, during the company’s annual general meeting in Amsterdam.
Marchionne is known for touting the need for industry consolidation and, over the past few months, he raised the prospect that Volkswagen might be interested in such a deal with the company he leads.
No alliance with a manufacturer in sight, says CEO
“We need to be very careful that we don’t start unrealistic dreams about consolidation as we are on our way to achieve historically important results and a debt-free position. We are not at a point of time to discuss any alliance,” he said, basically shutting down all rumors.
He also mentioned that a merger is definitely attractive for Volkswagen, especially after PSA purchased GM’s Opel division, back in March, as mentioned above.
Fueling these rumors was also VW CEO Matthias Muller’s declaration, who reportedly said that he is considering talks with Fiat Chrysler.
According to the above-mentioned source, citing a report from Bloomberg, Mr. Marchionne said that the two companies aren’t in talks and he isn’t seeking a deal with Tesla either.
Fiat Chrysler, a tempting target
Apparently, this isn’t the first time Fiat Chrysler is being linked to a possible merger with another automaker, but Sergio Marchionned made it clear that this isn’t going to happen during until 2019, when he wants to step down as CEO.
Even though this deal won’t happen now or in the near future, the company is still involved in numerous partnerships, related to autonomous vehicles. To be more specific, they’re supplying Chrysler Pacifica Hybrids for Waymo, previously known as Google’s self-driving car project.
