Stellantis is in a disaster of its personal making

Demand for EVs has gone glacial, and one automaker after another is running aground: General Motors threw $7.6 billion overboard. Ford washed $19.5 billion off its books. Leave it to Stellantis to face the most titanic charge yet, a $26.5 billion bill for its own misplaced bet on EVs.

The Jeep, Dodge, and Chrysler parent company hasn’t said how much of that unfathomable sum is explicitly due to EV losses, as the write-down wiped away about 25 percent of the company’s stock value overnight. Every automaker faces the same cooling EV demand and whipsawing political climate, yet Stellantis appears the most exposed, due in part to longstanding failures to keep up with evolving tech or consumer tastes. Don’t forget quality. An additional $16.7 billion charge for warranty and recall claims, including a recall of 320,000 Jeep 4xe plug-in hybrids for battery-fire risks, adds insult to financial injury.

The names may change — Stellantis, Fiat Chrysler, DaimlerChrysler, Chrysler Corp. — but the company stays frustratingly familiar. It’s the slightly off-key sister in the Motown trio. It’s an automaker enamored of the quick fix, the low-hanging fruit.

In America, that low-hanging fruit tends to come in bunches of eight, with Hemi V8s below the hood of a thirsty pickup, SUV, or muscle car. Now it’s déjà vu all over again. Stellantis plans to ship 100,000 Hemi engines from its Saltillo, Mexico, factory in 2026, tripling output to power Ram 1500 pickups, Jeep Wranglers, and other models. For now, the demand appears there, and executives intend to give the people what they want.

During an analysts’ call last year, Stellantis CEO Antonio Filosa said the so-called Big Beautiful Bill — making sure to give President Trump credit — allows the company “more flexibility in choosing… a mix between ICE and electric versions that we sell. And this will mean, to us, a lot of additional profit.”

After a bad EV bet, automakers hope for an ICE winning streak

It’s hard to blame automakers for wanting to make back these brutal EV losses. Like GM, Ford, or Toyota, Stellantis is forecasting a financial windfall from the Trump administration’s blank check on pollution and mileage rules. But the pendulum will inevitably swing, and if this automaker doesn’t invest in affordable passenger cars and tech, it’s going to get its head lopped off.

Certainly, Stellantis’ EVs weren’t getting it done in America. The hunky Dodge Charger Daytona was a valiant-but-failed attempt at updating Mopar muscle for an electric age. Dodge was forced to add a gasoline version. A half-baked Jeep Wagoneer S EV, at more than $70,000 with options, fell flat in showrooms. The 2026 Jeep Recon is the company’s next shot at luring Tesla Model Y buyers, though the Mexico-built SUV will also start from $67,000, and with no $7,500 consumer tax credit to soften the blow.

Those models aren’t what the Trump administration has in mind to “assist” the industry, as it locks fuel-economy and emissions rules into a time machine, seemingly bound for the Eisenhower administration. A yearlong spree against regulations culminated with last week’s killing of the “endangerment finding,” the historic ruling that required the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gases as a threat to public health and safety.

Automakers will no longer face fines for failing to meet tailpipe pollution or fuel-economy standards. They will no longer be required to buy pricey climate credits from the likes of Tesla, or spend billions developing EVs that weren’t boosting the bottom line.

In the face of such regulatory monkey business, the Detroit Three are naturally tempted to play see no evil, hear no evil. Automakers are free to make whatever cars they like, at least until the next sheriff rides into Washington. “Choice” is their new mantra. Unsurprisingly, their choice is to make hay and haul it in fossil-fueled SUVs and pickup trucks that generate virtually all its profits.

Washington insists this is all about making cars more affordable. That includes a vindictive axing of fuel-saving stop/start technology, which the EPA calculated was trimming owners’ gasoline bills between 7.3 and 26.4 percent. (Wait, doesn’t gasoline cost money?) And it’s precisely those feature-stuffed trucks and SUVs that drove the price of the average new car past $50,000 in the first place. Today’s cheap gasoline also encourages automakers to party now and pay later. Longer memories will recall the old Chrysler getting caught with its pants down whenever fuel prices spiked, its showrooms overflowing with unsold, guzzling trucks. Churlish types may even recall Chrysler’s 2009 bankruptcy and subsequent federal bailout.

Still Top-Heavy with Trucks

Like its automaking peers, Stellantis insists it won’t walk away from EVs. But it remains more reliant on trucks and SUVs than any rival. Stellantis would at least try to own its area of expertise. Yet sales of its bread-and-butter Ram pickup, after briefly nosing past the mighty Ford F-150, have fallen off a cliff. Sure, some of that drop came from Ram’s controversial decision to drop a V-8 in favor of a more-efficient “Hurricane” inline V-6. But it’s more related to the botched rollout of a redesigned 2025 Ram, with production bottlenecks, quality glitches, and the elimination of an affordable “Classic” model in favor of moneymakers like the $87,000 Tungsten edition.

Try this for market malpractice: Prior to the launch of the 2026 Jeep Cherokee, a critical hybrid SUV that revives a storied Jeep nameplate, Stellantis didn’t even have a straight-up rival for the Toyota RAV4, Honda CR-V, or other wildly popular compact SUVs. (The Jeep Compass is much smaller and not up for that fight).

“That’s really where the market is, and the Koreans and Japanese are all over those segments,” says Tom Libby, director of industry analysis for S&P Global Mobility.

Compact SUVs are one of 33 market segments, by S&P’s count, yet those models account for 21 percent of all US sales. Stellantis, in effect, “was only competing in four-fifths of the market,” Libby says.

A revolving door of management hasn’t helped. Filosa is the latest CEO following the abrupt resignation of Carlos Tavares in December 2024, with Tavares facing pressure from all sides. Dealers, suppliers, the UAW, key shareholders, and the managing board were in near-revolt over slumping sales and Tavares’ relentless cost-cutting. Like a perpetually rebuilding sports franchise, each new company chief arrives with high hopes and fresh strategies, then gets replaced before he or she can see it through.

“You can’t keep changing course and expect things to improve,” Libby says.

In Europe, Stellantis’ Peugeot and Citroen brands were doing solid EV sales. Now the EU is watering down an EV mandate for 2035. So Stellantis plans to resurrect diesel engines in at least seven European models. Some analysts see this as smart business, with Chinese automakers having no diesels to sell. But this is also Stellantis at its blast-from-the-past best. In Europe, diesels have fallen from more than half the market in 2015 to 7.7 percent today. EVs are at nearly 20 percent and rising fast, driven by the arrival of Chinese models from BYD and others.

Too Many Brands, Not Enough Stars

Notoriously, Stellantis has too many underperforming brands, with 14 core outfits including a superfluous Lancia, Vauxhall, and DS in Europe. (I’ll leave Maserati off that list, hoping this once-glorious brand can survive). By this point, a boss-baby CEO would realize he has too many toys to play with. Yet each new chief has resisted making tough calls on which brands to cut loose. As brands such as Chrysler wither, executives publicly proclaim their love and commitment, only to neglect them.

Attempts to reestablish Fiat and Alfa Romeo in America were noble, especially for enthusiasts who crave some la dolce vita in their cars. But Alfa Romeo sold 5,600 cars here last year and a paltry 1,300 for Fiat. Sorry, but the experiment has failed. And despite having seven brands in America, none is the kind of mainstream anchor provided by GM’s Chevrolet, Ford, Toyota, or Honda.

Yet for all that, Stellantis doesn’t have a mainstream domestic car brand to take on Toyota, Honda, or Hyundai. It doesn’t have a high-margin luxury brand akin to Cadillac, whose thriving EV sales (prior to the kibosh on consumer credits) saw it pass a stumbling Audi in the US luxury ranks.

Things hit bottom in August, when Stellantis’ share of the US retail market reached a record-low 5.4-percent, according to S&P Global. The company has begun to turn things around, with retail share rising to 6.3 percent in November. But after shedding market share to Toyota or Honda for decades, the company is now losing it to Hyundai and Kia, whose sales have exploded. Not coincidentally, those Korean brands have invested in full lineups that encompass affordable sedans, SUVs, and smartly designed EVs.

One ominous number illustrates the depth of the problem. Stellantis’ percentage of repeat customers, which S&P calls its manufacturer loyalty measure, sunk to around 41 percent in August, before recovering to 47 percent for the fourth quarter. In other words, fewer than half of current owners are buying another Stellantis model, and that’s with seven brands to choose from. Among automakers that offer at least two brands here, only Volkswagen was lower at 44 percent.

At GM, a healthy 66 percent of owners end up buying another GM model, followed by Toyota and Ford at a respective 64 and 61 percent. That loyalty has become a critical indicator of long-term success, as a growing number of automakers fight over a limited (or shrinking) pie of new-car buyers. The winners are those who can steal customers from rivals, win over younger generations, and ideally keep them for life.

Can Stellantis Turn Things Around?

The frustrating part is that Stellantis, when it’s on its game, can deliver compelling cars and trucks, full of charm and personality.

The plush-and-powerful Ram. The Jeep Wrangler, which experienced a massive sales renaissance as Americans rediscovered the joys of authentic off-roaders. The Dodge Challenger and its Hellcat and Demon offshoots. The overlooked Maserati GranTurismo Folgore, a sweet-driving, 202-mph electric indulgence that makes a Lucid look like a Hertz rental.

Stellantis has little choice but to lean into its traditional customer base for now. But Stellantis must keep investing in electrification and other advanced tech, before the winds change again. Chinese EVs already have a foothold in Europe and a coming toehold in Canada and will inevitably blow into America as well.

The Ram 1500 REV pickup, serially delayed, remains an intriguing tech play. This type of “extended range electric vehicle,” or EREV, uses an ICE engine solely to generate electricity for a battery, which then efficiently powers the wheels. With much longer electric ranges than today’s plug-in hybrids, and the ability to fill a gas tank when needed, EREVs could prove popular with Americans who are leery over EV range or long charging times. Ram says the REV can cover 145 miles on plug-in electricity alone, with 690 miles of total range.

Filosa intends to revitalize a near-dormant Chrysler brand, including an actual sedan (possibly electric) based on the Halcyon concept, and perhaps a sporty small car priced below $30,000. The company is also readying a demo fleet of Charger Daytonas, powered by semi-solid-state batteries — from the Massachusetts-based Factorial Energy — that helped a lightly modified Mercedes EQS sedan cover 749 miles from Stuttgart to Sweden, with 85 miles of range to spare.

If Stellantis can get in on the ground floor of crazy-ranging, rapid-charging solid-state batteries, it and other homegrown automakers could leapfrog the best lithium-ion technology in all of China. Stellantis would be viewed as a tech leader, not a follower. Show them 500 miles of range and a 15-minute charge, and EV fans might consider a Dodge, Chrysler, or Ram for the first time in their lives. Don’t laugh. Remember how Tesla was going to drive every legacy automaker out of business? The clock may be ticking on Stellantis, but it’s not too late to change.