Chrysler pushes electric vehicles as part of uncertain future

12 months and things were looking good for Chrysler. Freed from the unhappy marriage with Daimler, the company was preparing for a positive future under new owners - the private equity company Cerberus.

But Chrysler has been hit hardest of all the US Big Three, and its Detroit Show presence is distinctly low-key; a far cry from last year, when the new Dodge Ram pick-up was launched with a herd of cattle outside the Cobo Hall.

Chrysler sales VP Jim Press even joked that the cows hadn’t returned this year as they’d been summoned by the “cow czar” in Washington, who wanted to check that they’d travelled to Detroit in low-cost cattle trucks.

This was an ill-advised reference to Chrysler's bail-out by the US government, and is unlikely to sit well with a US public sceptical of the government multi-billion-dollar loan package to Chrysler and GM - particulalry in light of Chrysler's wealthy owners.

Chrysler still hopes to get its hands on a further $7bn of US Government loans, though it is widelt believed that the government bail out and the 2009 Detroit Show are a way of showing that Chrysler is still viable as an ongoing convern for the attention of any putative buyers.

Any further bailout is dependent on Chrysler coming up with a plan to cut costs – and Press said that was well under way. “We took out 250,000 units of production that was aimed at fleets, and that has improved residuals; dealer inventories have been cut and four model lines have been eliminated.”

In their place will come new electric vehicles developed by Chrysler’s ENVI environmental projects division. Several of these were unveiled at the show, including the Dodge Circuit electric coupe, based on the Lotus Europa platform, as well as an EV Jeep Patriot and a new mid-size Chrysler EV, the 200C.

More cuts are to follow, reducing volumes and workforce. “We learned a hell of a lot in 2008,” Press says. And in recognition of the fact that $4bn of US taxpayers’ money has already been pushed Chrysler’s way, Press ended his presentation with the memorable line: “We now have a special bond with the American public.”