Carlos Tavares, the executive in charge of mega global automotive parent company Stellantis, was clearly not going to stay in his job for long, though it was recently announced that he’d retire in 2026 at the end of his contract. Friends, he didn’t even make it out of 2024.
None of this is a surprise. Tavares, pictured above, managed to accomplish record profits during the pandemic at the expense of almost any sort of obvious plan for the future. His management style put French managers on top of Italian and American subordinates. He frequently feuded with the Italian government. Dealers, workers, suppliers, and customers were all mad at him.
Perhaps most telling of all, Tavares couldn’t keep making big margins in North America, which is a necessity for Stellantis as the company needs North American profits to offset losses in Europe and other markets. Stellantis announced today that Tavares had resigned. Here’s the statement:
Stellantis N.V. (“Stellantis” or “the Company”) announces that the Company’s Board of Directors, under the Chairmanship of John Elkann, accepted Carlos Tavares’ resignation today from his role as Chief Executive Officer with immediate effect.
The process to appoint the new permanent Chief Executive Officer is well under way, managed by a Special Committee of the Board, and will be concluded within the first half of 2025. Until then, a new Interim Executive Committee, chaired by John Elkann, will be established.
Stellantis confirms the guidance it presented to the financial community on October 31, 2024, in respect of its full year 2024 results.
Stellantis’ Senior Independent Director, Henri de Castries, commented: “Stellantis’ success since its creation has been rooted in a perfect alignment between the reference shareholders, the Board and the CEO. However, in recent weeks different views have emerged which have resulted in the Board and the CEO coming to today’s decision.”
Chairman John Elkann said: “Our thanks go to Carlos for his years of dedicated service and the role he has played in the creation of Stellantis, in addition to the previous turnarounds of PSA and Opel, setting us on the path to becoming a global leader in our industry. I look forward to working with our new Interim Executive Committee, supported by all our Stellantis colleagues, as we complete the process of appointing our new CEO. Together we will ensure the continued deployment of the Company’s strategy in the long-term interests of Stellantis and all of its stakeholders.”
This is immediate, so he’s out.
The big question is: What were those “different views” referenced here? At least one view is probably that Tavares wanted to stay with the company and not many other people seemed to share that view. Dealers called the brands helmed by Tavares a disaster, customers were upset with the company’s direction, and even Tavares himself called his view of North America “arrogant.”
It sort of sounds like the classic “If you do X I’ll resign” bluff might have occurred and the Board called his bluff, but that’s just a wild guess.
There are a lot of words that need to be written by me, specifically, but I’m going to give Tavares and others a chance to chime in before picking this up in TMD tomorrow.
Image: The Wedding Singer
“We’ll just jack all our prices during the pandemic and squeeze all our loyal customers for every penny, pricing ourselves out of both our vehicle class and our customer base and that’s gonna last forever, right? Right?”- Tavares
“Perhaps most telling of all, Tavares couldn’t keep making big margins in North America, which is a necessity for Stellantis as the company needs North American profits to offset losses in Europe and other markets.”
Were they losing money in Europe? Do you have a source for that? The latest I could find about this was the pre-merger reports of PSA and FCA. According to that both had around 5-5 billion euros of profit normally in the previous years.
He has been CEO for less than 4 years (Stellantis is less than 4 years old). That’s barely enough to make a new car from 0. So the cars they have now, and those that will come in the next year, more than likely came from pre-merger decesions. His side has a pair of new Citroëns for Dacia rivaling prices (plus the same cars dressed up as Opels/Vauxhalls). But unlike Dacia, these are also available as EVs. They also have the new 3008 and 5008 (and the Opel Grandland, that fits somewhere between these 2), with batteries supposedly comming from ACC for the BEV variants. (We all heard about what happened to Northvolt…)
The FCA side has the Tonale/Hornet, some indistinguishable large Jeeps (where the Grand Cherokee has good enough sales numbers, still gets booed), the 500e and the new Charger.
So I’d say his mistakes after merger were:
– not axing some new models with FCA roots, like the Tonale/Hornet, and the 500e (for the US),
– not making an americanized 5008 that could be sold as a Dodge or a Chrysler.
I don’t think you’ve been paying attention, bub. It’s so much worse than that, and allllllll of these articles over the last several months show this
It was hard to choose just one Jon Lovitz GIF at Tenor because several of them fit very well, but this one has a tone that’s suitable, yet optimistic in its own way.
I’m really going to miss all the Lovitz references
I don’t think he’ll disappear, entirely, so keep ’em at the ready
I can hear Jon Lovitz’s voice saying, “Will you accept my resignation that you ordered me to tender?”
If he had anything to do with the name Stellantis he definitely deserves to go.
Stellantis board read about the Bears giving Matt Eberflus the sack and though, hey…
I hope it’s a coincidence that 2 Auto CEOs named Carlos have tanked their respective companies.
Well, to be fair Ghosn’s companies were doing so well that he could run up $100 million in personal expenses billed to the companies before anyone noticed.
Unless your name is Carlos, I think you’re good