UPDATE: Chrysler Shuffles Product Schedule

The revised 2013-2016 North American product schedule Chrysler Group LLC revealed this this week drops four models that were to be supplied by Fiat SpA for the Chrysler and Dodge brands.

The new strategy updates a plan Chrysler set in 2009. CEO Sergio Marchionne tells The Wall Street Journal the shuffle reflects a need to manage cash and prioritize some of its new-model launches.

Chrysler netted $1.7 billion last year and boosted its cash 21% to $11.6 billion. But Fiat, excluding Chrysler, lost $1.4 billion and saw its cash supply slip. Fiat can't touch Chrysler's cash until the two carmakers are fully merged.

The new plan adds five Fiat-brand models and three Alfa Romeo-brand models, all from Italy for the American market, by 2016. It also delays by as much as three years the rollout of nine new or refreshed Chrysler-produced models for the Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Ram brands.

This year will see three updates for Ram, all of which were originally expected in 2012. They include the debut of a new domestically built Ram ProMaster commercial van and refreshed Ram HD and chassis cab models.

Meanwhile, two unidentified Fiat-sourced models that had been scheduled for Ram in 2012 and Jeep this year will both debut instead in 2014. And Chrysler-produced models once due for Jeep this year and the Chrysler brand in 2014 are both now slated for 2015. A domestically built Ram model previously set for this year won't bow until 2016.

The revised plan indicates a huge push for Fiat's Italian brands in North America three years from now. The schedule shows the debut of six new imported Fiat models in 2015 four of them new. Alfa Romeo, whose first model is due in America this year, will add four more in 2015, twice the previous number scheduled for that date.