The fate of Fiat’s Mirafiori plant in Italy is uncertain as the shift to electric vehicles struggles to gain steam
People walk past a closed part of the Franco-Italian automaker Stellantis factory of Mirafiori , in Turin , Italy , Oct. 16, 2024.For much of its life, Fiat ’s Mirafiori factory in Turin was the top car maker in Europe . The vast, Fascist-era industrial spread in Northwest Italy pumped out almost 30 million vehicles after it reopened just after the Second World War, turning Fiat into a global brand.
At its peak, Mirafiori made a million cars every year, but today production has been shut down because the plant was making only three slow-selling models.Mirafiori remains open, but its output has declined steadily in recent years. All car production was suspended this month, though the shutdown hardly came as a shock. The site was making only three slow-selling models: the Fiat 500e – the electric version of the iconic little 500 – and two low-volume Maserati sports cars.
Not so many decades ago, Mirafiori represented the industrial might and engineering savvy of Italy, which was then the second-biggest manufacturing power in Europe, after Germany. The site’s 1939 opening ceremony was attended by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, but mass production did not start until 1947, with the tiny Topolino, or Little Mouse. Over the years, Mirafiori made dozens of Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Lancia and Maserati models.
He took a blowtorch to Fiat’s clapped-out car fleet. The company was saddled with 19 different “architectures,” or platforms, with few parts shared among models. The number of platforms was reduced to six by 2012. Car development times were cut by almost half. New models were rolled out, including the compact Grande Punto, the car that more than any other is credited with turning Fiat around, and the 500, an instant hit.
But a factory site the size of a small city that makes no cars at the moment does not seem to have a bright future. Stellantis is not alone. EV sales, along with those of regular combustion engines, are sagging across Europe. Volkswagen plans to close three factories in Germany and force a 10-per-cent pay cut for the survivors. Ford is axing 4,000 European jobs.
Stellantis Mirafiori Turin Fiat Europe Italy Deindustrialization
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