In exchange for becoming the operating partner and 20-percent owner of Chrysler Group LLC, Fiat S.p.A. said it would work to incorporate its new efficiency-enhancing powertrain technologies into Chrysler-badged vehicles and other models the two companies may introduce into the U.S. market. Fiat recently launched one such technology, showing the media the first car powered by an engine using the company's innovative “Multiair” variable-valve timing system. The technology seems genuinely impressive – it cuts fuel consumption by a solid 10 percent while increasing power and torque by a similar amount – but the car in which the first Multiair 4-cylinder engines are launched, the Alfa Romeo Mito (”me-too”) subcompact, are markedly more expensive than most Americans would consider reasonable for such a small car. The mid-level Mito, with a 133-horsepower Multiair 4-cylinder that most closely matches the power U.S. buyers expect from the 4-cylinder engine in a compact car, costs about £14,645 in the United Kingdom, auto-enthusiast magazine Car reports. In straight exchange-rate conversion, that amounts to about $24,000.
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Fiat Engine Tech Impressive – But Would U.S. Buyers Accept the Cost?
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