Whether or not his company enters a partnership with GAC or another company, Mr. Marchionne will probably not be around to see if it pays off. During his news conference, he confirmed that this will be his last year running Fiat Chrysler. He began as the chief executive of Fiat in 2004 and under his direction the company took control of Chrysler just as it was undergoing a wrenching bankruptcy reorganization engineered by regulators in Washington in 2009.

Mr. Marchionne said his successor will be named sometime after March, when Fiat Chrysler expected to present a new business plan that will serve as a road map to guide the company’s operations through 2022. Two internal candidates, Richard Palmer, the chief financial officer, and Mike Manley, head of the highly profitable Jeep and Ram brands, are expected to be among the top contenders.

Mr. Marchionne said that Fiat Chrysler “has no intention” of breaking up the company and selling Jeep or Ram. “The answer is no,” he said.

But a partnership to sell GAC cars in the United States could make sense. Fiat Chrysler’s Dodge and Chrysler brands no longer offer small or mid-sized cars, having dropped them from their lineups in 2016. Dealers selling Fiat-brand small cars, meanwhile, are desperate for additional models to offer. Many Fiat dealers sell only a handful of new cars each month and do most of their business in a variety of used models.

“Fiat has limited potential in the U.S.,” Mr. Marchionne acknowledged.

Furthermore, Fiat Chrysler does not have an electric car in its lineup and Mr. Marchionne opposes the idea of investing the money to develop one.

“I don’t know of any organization making money on electric vehicles,” he said. Hybrids and electric cars together make up only 3 percent of all new cars sold in the United States, he noted. “That is not a good economic basis in which to do any type of investment.”

Some dealers, however, said they saw a need for Fiat Chrysler to get back into the mid-sized car segment and offer at least one electric model. “It may be a shrinking segment but I still have customers who want cars,” said Wesley Lutz, owner of Extreme Dodge in Jackson, Mich. “And it would be nice to at least have one hybrid and electric vehicle because you do have those green customers out there.”