Dodge Crossover a Global Crossbreed
Crossover vehicles that feature SUV bodies riding on car platforms have been all the rage in the auto industry for the last few years.
Meet the new rage: international crossbreeds.
Dodge’s 2007 Caliber, a five-passenger compact sport wagon, will arrive next year equipped with a Dodge body made in the United States, a Nissan transmission built in Mexico and an all-wheel-drive system that uses Mitsubishi parts made in Japan.
One version to be sold outside the U.S. will use a Volkswagen diesel engine made in Germany.
It’s all part of the shrinking world of global auto making, as cooperative ventures are increasingly common and the major manufacturers seek to cut product development costs.
“It’s increasingly expensive to do a lot of this on your own,” said Lindsay Brooke, advanced technology analyst at CSM Worldwide automotive consulting in Farmington Hills, Mich. “Automakers want to be individual on things customers see and touch, but everything else is on the table.”
In Dodge’s case, parent company Chrysler Group -- the U.S. arm of Germany’s DaimlerChrysler -- has slashed product development spending to $6 billion this year, down nearly 30% since 2000.
As budgets ratchet down, “it makes sense to go where the expertise is and to buy proven components instead of spending a lot of money reinventing the wheel,” said Dan Gorrell, vice president of Strategic Vision, a San Diego-based auto industry consulting and market research firm.
Chrysler and other U.S. automakers have long had cooperative agreements with overseas competitors: Chrysler and Mitsubishi Motors Corp. were teammates 30 years ago, Mazda Motor Corp. made Ford Motor Co.’s small pickups in the late 1970s and early ‘80s, and many General Motors Corp. products sold under the Geo brand in the 1990s were built by Toyota Motor Corp. and Suzuki Motor Corp.
These days, though, the cooperation goes beyond importing and re-badging whole vehicles made by another company. Automakers are increasingly seeking out components built by competitors to maximize their own development dollars.
Ford, for example, licensed Toyota patents in developing the gasoline-electric drive system for its Escape hybrid sport utility vehicle, and Nissan Motor Co.’s upcoming Altima hybrid will use a gas-electric system purchased from Toyota. Ford and GM are jointly developing transmissions. BMW’s Mini Cooper uses a four-cylinder engine designed by Chrysler and built in a DaimlerChrysler plant in Brazil.
The small-car segment in which the Dodge Caliber fits -- it is expected to replace the $14,000-to-$17,000 Neon -- has narrow profit margins. So “you want to make the best possible business case,” said Chrysler engineering spokesman Cole Quinnell, referring to the advantage of sharing components.
When it comes time for service or repair, manufacturers work with dealers to make sure that unfamiliar technology won’t cause problems.
By the time the first Calibers arrive for service at dealerships late next year, each mechanic will have gone to a regional training center to learn about the new transmission and the all-wheel-drive system. Mechanics in Europe will have been trained to work on the VW diesel engine.
“We don’t let them work on a new car until they’ve been trained on anything that is new or different about it,” said Mark Aguilera, service manager at Costa Mesa Dodge, of his mechanics.
“If we let someone work on something without being trained, Chrysler would fine us.”
As for the buyers: “The consumer wants reliability, fuel economy and a reasonable price and isn’t all that concerned about where the transmission was built,” said Quinnell, the Chrysler spokesman.
Besides, Calibers sold in the United States will use a Chrysler gas engine. Sort of.
Actually, it’s an engine designed in Michigan by a joint venture of Chrysler, Mitsubishi and Hyundai Motor Co. of South Korea.
