One of Europe’s most popular cars, the Fiat Panda, has been pulled from the Australian market after less than two years on sale.
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles Australia President and CEO Pat Dougherty said the Panda may have enjoyed better sales here if it was available with a conventional automatic transmission instead of the Italian car-maker's automated manual Duologic gearbox.
“It is a great product globally for us, but for a few reasons it didn’t resonate with the Australian buyer. We stopped ordering them months ago," he told motoring.com.au at last week's launch of the facelifted Chrysler 300.
“I think that one thing is the automatic transmission. I don’t think most consumers acclimate well to it. Having said that, the fuel efficiency of that is much better than a normal automatic transmission, and you can get great fuel efficiency out of it if you know how to drive it.”
When asked if pricing — which ranged between $16,500 and $22,500, making it almost identical to the Fiat 500 — was also a factor in the Panda's lacklustre sales, Dougherty said: ”It could’ve been, I’m not sure.”
“It is a great product globally for us, but for a few reasons it didn’t resonate with the Australian buyer. I don’t think we got the offering quite right for this market.
“If that were to change and there was an opportunity to revisit the Panda with the right model mix, specification and price, then it’s something we could consider again.
“But our focus for the time being is on growing the Fiat line-up, with both the Fiat 500X and 124 set to launch in Australia soon, along with the updated Fiat 500.”
Released here in October 2013 in Pop, Easy, Lounge and Trekking variants, the current 312/319-series Panda was launched in Europe in 2011 and is not due for a complete model change until 2018.
From launch, prices ranged from $16,500 drive-away for the Pop to $24,000 (plus on-road costs) for the Trekking. The Easy and Lounge were the only models to offer a manual-transmission alternative, the Dualogic automated manual.
By June 2014 Fiat dealers had slashed prices on Panda Easy manual to almost half price at less than $12,000 drive-away. By April this year, the remaining 2013-build Pandas were being sold for as little as $10,000 drive-away for the Easy manual.
From January to June this year, 202 Pandas were sold. This compared with the light-car segment leader — the Mitsubishi Mirage — at 1963 units and runner-up Fiat’s own 500 which sold 1394 examples.
Just 577 Pandas were sold between late October 2013 to the end of June. About 80 remain in dealer stock.
Meanwhile, Fiat's first small SUV, the 500X (and the Jeep Renegade, on which the 500X is based), arrives in Australia showrooms in October.
Dougherty — who in February said that he wants to double FCAA sales by 2018 — believes that the 500X/Renegade will play a key part in propelling that growth.
“Today, were not in the segments that are the hottest right now. So when Renegade and 500X arrive, it’s going to be spectacular. We’re going to have two products in one of the hottest and fastest-growing segments in the country."
Dougherty said the 500X and Renegade city-crossovers had the potential to bring customers from the small-car segment, as well as the light-car class in which the Panda played.
"I think we’re going to steal some sales from C-segment sedan, C-hatch and B-hatch. I think you’re going to see a lot of different buyers come to Renegade and 500X.”
Expect the 500X to launch here in three guises from October -- a 103kW 1.4-litre turbo-petrol four driving the front wheels via six-speed manual and six-speed dual-clutch automatic transmissions, and a 125kW version of the same engine driving all four wheels via a nine-speed auto as standard.