I could see a small market with the RV crowd. It could take the place of the long-gone Smart Car. People could haul it on the back of their semi pulling a fifth wheel, or it's small enough to fit in a trailer behind a motorhome so you can take other stuff along and still have room for the "car". Gives you the golf cart size, but with full ability to drive it on the road.
'Before they forced us back to the office my buddy sold his house to his son who had moved from NYC during Covid and bought an RV and spent over a year driving around the country and working remotely.
I see what you guys are saying, but I feel like if you developed a really flexible, cost efficient platform for C class sized vehicles, modifying it over time to be used for even smaller vehicles wouldn't be an insanely difficult task.
Maybe that's the plan, but it's gonna take awhile so they're partnering with Renault to get products out there quickly and then replace those products with their own platform as the products from this merger reach the end of their shelf life?
Everything we know regarding CE1 is focused on compact models - Maverick, Escape/Kuga, Focus, etc. I don't know if it was designed to be able to go smaller/into the sub-compact models.
This move makes sense if it's meant for Fiesta sized models (or smaller), otherwise, I'm there with you that it's confusing if it is meant for compacts, which CE1 should cover.
I live near the beach and in the summer time I've seen quite a few of those Moke LSV in the area. But its also a low speed vehicle that doesn't go faster then 25 MPH either.
I saw other articles mention they may target the "golf cart" market....meaning there are areas down here where fancy golf carts are able to drive on the roads, so they're targeting that demographic? Seems like a tiny slice of the pie to the point of why bother?
But I guess nothing else has worked for Fiat in the US, so why not?