The Italian automotive company intends to re-orient its business from the A-Class segment (subcompact cars) to the B-class (compact cars).
The decision might look a bit strange, given that the smallest Fiat vehicles are extremely popular in Europe. In the first half of 2019 alone, the company has sold 100,150 Fiat 500, following 188,448 in the entire 2018. New Fiat Pandas found 105,534 new owners from January until June 2019, demonstrating a 15% growth compared to the same period the year before. Furthermore, Fiat was planning issuing a hybrid version of the Panda in 2020.
That said, both urban cars show signs of aging. The third generation of the Panda has been around for seven long years, and the Fiat 500 for as many as 12. This is partly why the company wants to get rid of them: designing new generations in compliance with the strict EU emission regulations would be prohibitively expensive.
On an interesting note, Fiat actually dropped out of the B-Class last year when it discontinued its Punto compact. Still, it hopes that the merger concluded between FCA and PSA will enable it to take advantage of the modern CMP vehicle architecture of the latest Opel Corsa and Peugeot 208.
The change of market focus towards the more profitable B segment should be complete by 2024, Fiat says.