The Tychy plant in Poland could take over porduction of all Fiat 500s by 2015

Italian car maker Fiat currently makes its 500 model in both Tychy, Poland and Toluca, Mexico. But in 2015 it plans to shift all production of the next-generation 500 model exclusively to Poland, Automotive News reported last week.

The Tychy plant has been producing 500s for more than five years for European markets, while its Mexican counterpart supplies North and South America, as well as China.
“Building the next 500 in Fiat’s Tychy plant will increase capacity utilization there. It will also free capacity in Toluca for Chrysler to build core products for North America,” Massimo Vecchio, a financial analyst at Mediobanca Securities in Milan told the newspaper.
Such a decision would give a much-needed boost to the Tychy plant, which has been suffering from declining car sales in Europe and Fiat’s 2011 decision to move the production of its Panda model to Italy.

Since then the factory has been operating below production capacity and at the end of last year Fiat started the process of laying off 1,450 of its workers.

At the North American International Auto Show in Detroit last month, Fiat-Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne said that Chrysler’s North American plants are nearing full capacity. He added that before opening plants in North America, he would try to make full use of Fiat’s European plants to satisfy Fiat-Chrysler global demand.

So far, Fiat has invested E300 million in developing a new generation of 500s, which are expected to debut before the end of 2015.

Jacek Ciesnowski