FCA US, LLC, doing business as Stellantis North America and known historically as Chrysler (/ˈkraɪslər/ KRY-slər),[2][3] is one of the "Big Three" automobile manufacturers in the United States, headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan.
Facing postwar declines in market share, productivity, and profitability, as GM and Ford were growing, Chrysler borrowed $250 million in 1954 from Prudential Insurance to pay for expansion and updated car designs.
The company remained in business through a combination of negotiations with creditors, filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization on April 30, 2009, and participating in a bailout from the U.S. government through the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
On June 10, 2009, Chrysler emerged from the bankruptcy proceedings with the United Auto Workers pension fund, Fiat S.p.A., and the U.S. and Canadian governments as principal owners.
The Plymouth brand was introduced at the low-priced end of the market (created essentially by once again reworking and rebadging the Chrysler Series 50 four-cylinder model).
This addition changed the company's traditional four-make lineup to five (in order of price from bottom to top): Plymouth, Dodge, DeSoto, Chrysler, and the now-separate Imperial.
[34] In 1954, Chrysler was the exclusive provider of its Hemi V8 engine in the Facel Vega, a French coachbuilder that offered their own line of hand-built luxury performance cars, coupled with the PowerFlite and TorqueFlite automatic transmissions.
When consumer tastes shifted to smaller cars in the early 1970s, particularly after the 1973 oil crisis, Chrysler could not meet the demand, although their compact models on the "A" body platform, the Dodge Dart and Plymouth Valiant, had proven economy and reliability and sold very well.
Their replacements, the Dodge Aspen and Plymouth Volare, were comfortable and had good roadability, but owners soon experienced major reliability problems which crept into other models as well.
[38] Also in 1978, Iacocca offloaded the ailing European operation to PSA Peugeot Citroën for a nominal $1, taking with it the group's substantial losses and debts which had been dragging the rest of the business down.
In November 1983, the Dodge Caravan/Plymouth Voyager was introduced, built on a modified K platform, establishing the minivan as a major category, and initiating Chrysler's return to stability.
[citation needed] Former AMC dealers sold Jeep vehicles and various new Eagle models, as well as Chrysler products, strengthening the automaker's retail distribution system.
[citation needed] The Ram, Jeep, Dodge, SRT, and Chrysler divisions were separated to focus on their own identity and brand, and 11 major model refreshes occurred in 21 months.
[71] As a result of ending domestic production of more fuel-efficient passenger automobiles such as the Dodge Dart and Chrysler 200 sedans, FCA US elected to pay $77 million in fines for violating the anti-backsliding provision of fuel economy standards set under the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 for its model year 2016 fleet.
[104][105] As part of the campaign, Chrysler sold a line of clothing items featuring the Monument to Joe Louis, with proceeds being funneled to Detroit-area charities, including the Boys and Girls Clubs of Southeast Michigan, Habitat for Humanity Detroit and the Marshall Mathers Foundation.
On June 18, 2011, U.S. District Judge Arthur Tarnow ruled that Chrysler's request did not show that it would suffer irreparable harm or that it had a strong likelihood of winning its case.
[114] Asked about the criticism in a 60 Minutes interview with Steve Kroft, Sergio Marchionne responded "just to rectify the record I paid back the loans at 19.7% Interest.
First introduced as MyGig, Chrysler Uconnect is a system that brings interactive ability to the in-car radio and telemetric-like controls to car settings.
According to Chrysler LLC, the hotspot range extends approximately 100 feet (30 m) from the vehicle in all directions, and combines both Wi-Fi and Sprint's 3G cellular connectivity.
In September 2007, Chrysler established ENVI, an in-house organization focused on electric-drive vehicles and related technologies which was disbanded by late 2009.
[135] Chrysler was on the Advisory Council of the PHEV Research Center, and undertook a government sponsored demonstration project with Ram and minivan vehicles.
[136] In 2012, FCA CEO Sergio Marchionne stated that Chrysler and Fiat planned to focus primarily on alternative fuels, such as compressed natural gas and Diesel, instead of hybrid and electric drivetrains for their consumer products.
[137] Fiat Chrysler bought a total of 8.2 million megagrams of U.S. greenhouse gas emission credits from competitors including Toyota, Honda, Tesla and Nissan for the 2010, 2011, 2013, and 2014 model years.
[140] They were also designing V12 and V16 hemi-engines producing 2,500 hp (1,864 kW; 2,535 PS) for airplanes, but they did not make it into production as jets were developed and were seen as the future for air travel.
For the final production design of this antenna and its highly complex drive mechanism, the Army's Signal Corps Laboratories turned to Chrysler's Central Engineering Office.
Chrysler established the Missile Division to serve as the Redstone prime contractor, setting up an engineering operation in Huntsville and for production obtaining use from the U.S. Navy of a large plant in Sterling Heights, Michigan.
[144] In July 1959, NASA chose the Redstone missile as the basis for the Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle to be used for suborbital test flights of the Project Mercury spacecraft.
The MRLV successfully launched the chimpanzee Ham, and astronauts Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom on three suborbital flights in January, May, and July 1961, respectively.
America's more ambitious crewed space travel plans included the design of the Saturn series of heavy-lift launch vehicles by a team headed by Wernher von Braun.
The design was based on a cluster of Redstone and Jupiter fuel tanks and Chrysler built it for the Apollo program in the Michoud Assembly Facility in East New Orleans, one of the largest manufacturing plants in the world.