Fiat Chrysler shifts Detroit-area plant from cars to trucks

Associated Press

DETROIT

Fiat Chrysler says it will sink $1.5 billion into a suburban Detroit factory as it retools plants to make more trucks and SUVs and stops producing small and midsize cars.

With the investment announced Tuesday, the company will equip the Sterling Heights, Mich., Assembly Plant so it can make Ram pickup trucks. The plant currently makes the Chrysler 200 midsize car, but that production will end in December.

Fiat Chrysler says the investment hinges on formal approval of incentives by state and local governments.

CEO Sergio Marchionne has said the company wants to find a partner to build small cars, but spokeswoman Jodi Tinson says FCA has nothing to announce at present.

The investment is part of a series of moves to increase Jeep and Ram production and cease manufacturing of smaller cars.

After December, the 3,000-worker Sterling Heights plant will close so the company can set it up to make Rams. FCA wouldn’t say when it would reopen, but until it does, the company’s Warren, Mich., truck plant will keep making Rams. Eventually, that plant will be retooled to produce the Jeep Wagoneer or Grand Wagoneer, an SUV that’s larger than the Jeep Grand Cherokee.

Earlier this month, FCA said it would spend $1 billion to retool a factory in Toledo for production of a new Jeep Wrangler and to move its Jeep Cherokee line to a plant in Belvidere, Ill.