Sergio Marchionne the CEO of Fiat and Chrysler said on Monday that the two automakers would have a combined capacity of 6 million vehicles annually once their forces are combined.
Marchionne is aiming to complete the merger of the two automakers before the end of this year. The merger would create the company Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, which would become the seventh largest automaker in the world.
In May, Marchionne is to outline the new business plan for the company in Detroit.
Last year, the carmakers delivered a combined 4.4 million vehicles and the CEO said the two automakers combined would see between 4.5 million and 4.6 million in 2014. The strength of those sales will come from the Asian and U.S. markets.
Marchionne has said for quite some time that a threshold of 6 million autos per year needs to be hit by a carmaker for it to be profitable in a global market that is increasingly more competitive and crowded.
However, the Fiat CEO shied away recently from forecasting what the two automakers might achieve as sales across Europe bottomed out during the 2008 economic crisis.
Marchionne, who has run Chrysler since the company emerged five years ago from bankruptcy, won a deal that was hard fought to purchase the remaining shares of the U.S. automaker in January, which cleared the way for a merger of the two.
The new company, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is to be headquartered in the Netherlands legally with Britain as its fiscal headquarters. Shares of the company will be traded in both Milan and New York.
Marchionne commented that it would be disingenuous on his part if he failed to recognize the emotional part of merging two distinct automakers with varying and different histories.
