Mercedes Joint Venture with Fiat a No-Go

For weeks, Mercedes-Benz and Fiat have been in talks to consider a joint venture producing smaller compact cars. On Monday, though, Mercedes announced that the joint venture won’t be happening any time soon. The company ended talks with Fiat officials.

Analysts for Mercedes-Benz thought that the advantages of teaming up with Fiat were not great enough to go through with the venture. The two car companies discussed the possibility of Fiat producing the new compact A-Class and B-Class models for Mercedes. These cars were going to look much like Fiat’s existing Punto and Bravo, but they would have had more features that Mercedes vehicles are typically known for.

One senior Mercedes manager stated, “[they] produce small cars at a greater cost than we do.” This would mean higher prices for Benz customers. He went on to explain that Fiat engineers had differing philosophies and ideas for building the cars that didn’t mesh well with the Mercedes philosophies.

With the talks ending, there is a new opening to create a partnership with Mercedes for producing small compact cars. Some sources say Mercedes are in the first stage of talks with their rival – BMW. Norbert Reithofer – the BMW Chairman – has confirmed preliminary contacts have been made, but there isn’t anything official and no details have been discussed.

Right now, everything is still up in the air. Analysts can only speculate what’s going to happen in the months to come.
[tags]mercedes-benz, fiat, bmw, mercedes vehicles, A-Class, B-Class, Punto, Bravo, compact cars[/tags]

Filed Under: Mercedes-Benz • Mercedes-Benz Vehicles