Fiat-Chrysler plans to build up to 280,000 small SUVs a year in Italy for the Fiat and Jeep brands, sources say. Production will start in June 2014 with the as-yet-unnamed Jeep variant followed three months later by the Fiat 500X.

Chrysler Group is recalling 840,000 vehicles in the United States and other countries, mostly for active-restraint head rests that are possibly flawed.

The U.S. auto industry, in tatters just four years ago, is emerging as an export powerhouse, driven by favorable exchange rates and labor costs in a trend experts say could drive business for many years.