Chysler and Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne reckons Jeep will achieve its goal this year of selling 1m worldwide, a 37% year on year rise versus the brand’s global sales last year, but an analyst and even the brand’s head have reservations.
Marchionne told Reuters the lack of a mid-sized SUV in the US hurt overall sales in 2013 but strong demand for the redesigned Jeep Cherokee this year would help Chrysler to boost sales.
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The Liberty – US domestic nameplate for the Cherokee till the 2014 model – was out of production last year and any remaining sales were minimal so Jeep – Chrysler’s best selling brand did not have a midsize SUV, the largest entry in the American SUV market. The Cherokee – delayed for a couple of months while a software glitch with its new nine speed automatic transmission was sorted out – was only sold in the final two months of last year and Marchionne told Reuters all signs point to the company making up for lost sales this year.
“And we’ve got the small Jeep coming out of Europe,” he said, pointing to some late-year sales for the unnamed compact SUV set to make its debut at the Geneva show in March.
Also helping Chrysler hit its 2014 sales target, Marchionne said, will be increased production of the Grand Cherokee, the top-selling Jeep in 2013, because some of the bottlenecks have been eliminated at the Jefferson North plant in Detroit.
Finally, there is some more output expected to be wrung out of the Wrangler plant in Toledo, Ohio, he added.
“So we’ll see. It should add up to a million,” Marchionne said.
Jeff Schuster, senior vice president of forecasting at LMC Automotive, told Reuters Jeep would hit 1m in sales by 2020, but not this year.
“All the planets would have to perfectly align, even those we don’t yet know about, to hit the target in 2014, so we just don’t see that happening,” he said.
Mike Manley, head of the Jeep brand, agreed Jeep has to avoid setbacks to reach a million in sales this year.
“I’m very focused on getting to the million number but I want to get a few months under my belt before I say ‘yes we’re going to be there,'” he told Reuters.
“I want to see a couple of months of Cherokee,” he added. “We’re just beginning to ship to international markets.”
Chrysler intends to build a Jeep in China for local sale but Marchionne and Manley could not say how soon the Chinese government would green light those plans.
Manley told Reuters there were signs approval could come at the end of the first quarter which would mean that production could start by the end of 2015 or in the first half of 2016.
