????Chrysler intends to distinguish the Dart by taking a page from the likes of BMW's posh Mini brand. It plans to offer customers a vast choice of options and up to 100,000 equipment, colors and feature combinations, instead of a few standard packages, the norm with most competitive vehicles. Buyers who choose to customize their vehicles could wait four to six weeks until the vehicle is built and shipped from Chrysler's Belvidere, Illinois assembly plant. "Automakers generally have limited choice in order to streamline production and build more vehicles faster," notes Bragman. "Dodge isn't worried about that, it wants to stand out."
????The company is bullish on the Dart's prospects. "Everyone in the segment is fuel-efficient, we've got to be competitive in many ways," says Richard Cox, Dodge's brand director. "We've haven't been competitive enough in the past, we think we're giving consumers another choice with the Dart." He adds that logistics of providing mass customization to consumers "is something Fiat already was doing in Europe."
????Chrysler's newest Dodge should benefit from an improving U.S. automotive market. April sales in the U.S. are expected to come in at the highest seasonally adjusted annual rate in five years. What's more, analysts expect the market to continue making progress. Year-to-date sales have beat car-buying site Edmunds.com's estimates every month so far. And, the site's analysts expect Chrysler sales to be up 33.8%, year over year.
????There are challenges, not the least of which are a crop of very competitive small cars from nearly every major automaker. Even Chrysler's financials highlight the automaker's quandary: it is on pace to earn an impressive sum but not one sufficient for a global alliance to develop new vehicles and keep up with costly technology. Chrysler and Fiat need larger scale, most analysts agree, which it could get with another partner. Plenty of Dart sales will further boost Chrysler's balance sheet. They could also show that Chrysler Fiat can be a sustainable enterprise, one with which other automakers – also too small to stand alone – might want to join forces.
