The Obama administration announced Monday that Chrysler must strike a deal with Italian automaker Fiat, or another manufacturer, in the next 30 days or lose its government loans.
"I'm very skeptical that Chrysler and Fiat can actually make this thing work, that they can execute it properly," says David Kiley, senior correspondent in BusinessWeek's Detroit bureau.
He says the plan is much like Chrysler's controversial merger with Germany's Daimler, which sold the struggling car company to Cerberus in 2007.
The auto restructuring plan says the product mix and geographic reach of the two companies are complementary, but Kiley warns that making it work may not be easy.
"These things, as we learn, don't get executed on paper," he says. "They get executed in the marketplace."
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