By Steven Symes 
It’s no secret Stellantis is in serious trouble, but a new estimate that it’s lost $2.7 billion through June this year is shocking many. After all, most people thought things weren’t quite that bad inside Stellantis, but we’re afraid they might get worse before the real problems are fixed.
Stellantis is especially clueless when it comes to Chrysler.
While Stellantis is pointing the finger at President Trump’s tariffs, as reported by CNBC, we know the problems inside the automaker run deep. Hubris driving just plain stupid business decisions have plagued the company, even after CEO Carlos Tavares was dismissed.
For starters, nobody stepped back to ask if creating Stellantis was a good idea. When it was created by combining Fiat Chrysler with PSA Group out of France, the result was 14 car brands all under leadership in Amsterdam.
Some hailed it as the model for the auto industry moving forward, saying automakers would only survive if they combined resources in similar monstrosities. That really hasn’t aged well.
One of the biggest problems with Stellantis is its corporate leadership. They seem to believe they can tell consumers what they want instead of listening. This has played out especially poorly for Ram, Dodge, and Jeep, the company’s cash cows which have been keeping everything afloat.
You would think if your company was essentially being supported by those brands, which leaned heavily on American consumers and their love of V8 engines, you would eliminate the V8. But as you know, Stellantis did, then behaved like a lecturing school teacher when people complained.
It turns out consumers don’t like that, so would-be Stellantis customers took their money to other brands.
Now there’s serious talk about dumping different brands from the Stellantis lineup. We think that should include spinning off the American brands into their own company under American leadership.
The big bosses in Amsterdam obviously have no idea how to manage Jeep, Dodge, Ram, and Chrysler. It’s time to give it up and make Stellantis what it should have always been: a European-only automaker.
Image via Stellantis
Mike Johnson