This is The Morning Shift, our one-stop daily roundup of all the auto news that's actually important — all in one place at 9:30 AM. Or, you could spend all day waiting for other sites to parse it out to you one story at a time. Isn't your time more important?
1st Gear: La Chrysler
The Fiat-UAW IPO game of chicken is over, with Fiat getting the company for a conservative $4.35 billion.
This number is a lot closer to the price that Fiat wanted to pay than the amount of money than the amount the UAW Health Trust that owned the other 41.5% wanted.
From Bloomberg comes my favorite number:
Including earlier purchases of holdings from the U.S. and Canadian governments, Fiat's spending on Chrysler stakes will total $3.7 billion. That compares with the $36 billion that the then Daimler-Benz AG paid for the U.S. company in 1998.
Those Italians know how to deal.
2nd Gear: Fiat Stockholders Jolly About News
Fiat stock, which is on the Milan Exchange, had a wild day after people found out the news above. The company's stock went up as much as 15.8%, The Detroit Free Press reports, before regulating at 12%.
So, yeah, people think Fiat got a good deal.
By keeping an extra bit of cash it's assumed that Fiat can spend more beefing up in Europe and investing in products.
3rd Gear: Wanxiang Tries To Buy Fisker Because… Wait, What?
We'd all thought that Chinese rich kid Richard Li had all but purchased Fisker late last year.
Not quite. Fisker's creditors asked a Delaware bankruptcy court to nix the deal, says Reuters, so that Chinese auto parts company Wanxiang Group can bid on it.
Why? It should be noted that Wanxiang bought bankrupt battery-maker A123 Systems. Who was their largest customer? Fisker.
What a story.
4th Gear: The World Will Have 54 Million Self-Driving Cars By 2035?
That's what IHS Automotive is saying, but there's a catch as David Shepardson tells you after the lede:
IHS Automotive said Tuesday it forecasts total worldwide sales of self-driving cars will rise from nearly 230,000 in 2025 to 11.8 million in 2035. The firm predicts cars that have no driver controls — that are autonomous only — will be on the roads around 2030. The study also predicts that nearly all vehicles in use are likely to be self-driving cars or self-driving commercial vehicles sometime after 2050.
So, fully-automated cars are a ways off, but semi-autonomous vehicles will be all over the place. That makes sense.
5th Gear: French Cabbies Do Not Love Uber
Uber, the car service that makes friends everywhere it goes, is challenging a a French law that's trying to slow down how quickly they can pickup a passenger.
As The Wall Street Journal reports:
Under the new rule, all car services—but not licensed taxis—must wait "at least 15 minutes" between taking a reservation and picking up a passenger, more than double what car services like Uber say is their normal wait time. The only exception: pickups at four- and five-star hotels and at industry expos.
Uber is probably going to be in line for some regulation if they don't standardize some of their practices, but in the meantime this is just nonsense.
Reverse: Uber Barn Find
On this day in 2009, media outlets report that a rare unrestored 1937 Bugatti Type 57S Atalante Coupe has been found in the garage of a British doctor. A month later, on February 7, the car sold at a Paris auction for some $4.4 million.
[HISTORY]
Neutral: Fiatslyer, Chrysiat What do you predict for the new, fully merged company?
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