Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep And Ram Are Planning ‘The Most Epic Comeback In Automotive History’

It’s always an internal debate with these Morning Dump headlines if I’m going to say Stellantis or Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram because, frankly, the Stellantis brand isn’t strong. You don’t go to a Stellantis dealer, you go to a Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram dealer (or a Ram Fiat Alfa dealer, or whatever combo you like). The company is planning what it calls an “epic comeback” and that’s not going to be because Alfa or Fiat sales improve. It’s all about the four core brands.

Are we here for this? I’m here for this. After a long period of questioning Stellantis’ decision-making, it’s nice to see the automaker at least try to turn it around. How will the company do it? That’s the question, especially as it contends with low-performing brands. Across town at GM, the company is hoping to maintain its momentum, and one key to that is dropping what it says are low-performing employees.

Buyers have been concerned about vehicle affordability and, as the annual dealer conference wraps up in New Orleans, it seems like dealers are also worried about this. And, finally, Kia dealers will get a new recall to deal with this year. They’re used to it by now.

‘2024 Was Just Not Where Any Of Us Needed To Be’ Admits Stellantis Sales Chief

The fall of Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares, not pictured, was predictable, at least to anyone paying attention. This was a message that people didn’t want to hear at the beginning of 2024, with Stellantis celebrating a run of record profits during the pandemic.

This was a success built on lucky timing as much as anything else and one it seemed unlikely to maintain. As I wrote at the time:

I’m not saying or hoping that Stellantis will fail to deliver on its new products. As a car enthusiast, I want them all to be awesome cars and trucks that we can all enjoy. I’m just pointing out what I think is obvious, which is that the company is making a huge bet on its product delivering in a big way over the next 12 months and, outside of RAM, I’m not convinced there are a ton of huge winners.

Looking back, this is basically what happened. The company starved itself of products in an attempt to squeeze out profits from customers and then, when inventory started rising for everyone else, it realized that the products it was building for its most important market were not the products people wanted. Couple that with all the fights the company was picking and, inevitably, this wasn’t going to work.

Tavares is gone and there’s a new energy at the company. A lot of new energy. One of the decisions Tavares made was to shift sales exec Jeff Kommor to a commercial sales role from the top sales job. Once Tavares was gone the company quickly reversed that decision, and so Kommor was out at the National Auto Dealers Association (NADA) show in New Orleans trying to get dealers pumped by telling them they should be ready for “the most epic comeback in automotive history.”

Big talk. What does that mean?

From Automotive News:

“Keep an eye on us all year long,” Kommor told Automotive News after the meeting. “You’re going to see incremental improvements, you’re going see momentum, you’re going to see sales gains. The dealers got our back, we got their back, and I feel like we’re starting to gain their trust and optimism back. 2024 was just not where any of us needed to be.”

Stellantis plans to ignite its comeback in a number of ways, Kommor said, including increasing spending on regional Tier 2 marketing to 2019 levels.

“We’re exploring powertrain opportunities, getting ourselves back into segments that we had exited, putting our product in competitive positions, improving our quality,” Kommor said. “And then also helping the deals with advertising to make sure we’re supported in the marketplace at Tier 1 and Tier 2 to drive the message that we need, which are tools that we didn’t have over the last couple of years.”

I gotta say, I’m having a little trouble squaring “epic comeback” and “incremental improvements” so let’s break down the individual points here beyond the rah-rah locker room talk of momentum and trust.

That bit about “Tier 2” marketing is important. If you don’t speak marketing, it’s something like this for auto dealers (the automotive industry is more obsessed with tiers than Paul Hollywood):

• Tier 1: Big national marketing, Super Bowl ads, et cetera.
• Tier 2: Regional groups, like your Quad State AMC-Lamborghini Dealers or what have you.
• Tier 3: Local dealer ads.

Putting money into regional dealer groups is a great way to generate leads for sales (hint, please buy ads on The Autopian). Also, dealers were complaining last year about the lack of support in both incentive spend and advertising spend. Making dealers happy seems to be a large part of the company’s strategy.

Powertrain opportunities? That’s hybrids and probably V8s coming back. Segments that they’ve abandoned? Probably mid-sized trucks and entry-level crossover products for Jeep. Quality is… yeah, every brand can do better.

Again, I’m here for it, although it’s going to take the company a while to make it work. Sam reviewed the new Wagoneer S and it seems ok, but not great, and it probably needs to be great. I do appreciate that Stellantis is focusing on what it can fix immediately (keeping dealers happy, resolving issues with the UAW), what it can fix in the medium term (powertrains), and what it needs long-term (better product).

What’s not being said here quite as strongly, I think, is that the non-core brands (Fiat, Alfa Romeo, and Maserati) are probably going to be last in line for product improvements.

Let’s give the Badassadors some backup, boys!

GM Is Starting To Axe Salaried Employees Who Are ‘Underperforming’

GM instituted a new five-point evaluation criteria last year, up from the original three-point evaluation criteria. The company said at the time that it wanted managers to rate 5% of employees as significantly exceeding expectations, 10% as exceeding expectations, 70% as achieving, 10% as under-achieving, and 5% as doing so poorly they’re going to be “exited from the company”

It’s been about a year and, according to the Detroit Free Press, it’s happening now. Is this a good way to do things or are the company’s managers arbitrarily picking 5%?

GM’s emphasis on more stringent performance evaluation and imposing consequences for poor performance reflects what many companies have been doing in recent years to improve productivity and cut costs, said Marick Masters, a labor expert and business professor at Wayne State University in Detroit, who has been closely watching corporate America’s personnel practices.

Masters said the risk of such a program could have mixed effects, but “the devil is in the details.” It depends on how fair the workforce deems GM’s procedures to be and how fair management is perceived to be in implementing the procedures along with what kinds of opportunities employees are given to improve peformance before being cut.

Hmm, let’s check in on Reddit to see how people alleging to be cut employees are taking it:

This is all so sad, considering they said those in the bottom 5% would have some inkling about being in the bottom 5% by mid years. More dishonesty. How can anyone improve or even want to work at this company in this environment? There is always a threat looming. What an awful place to work. I don’t think they care, it is making all of us sick and riddled with anxiety. I figure, if it happens to me, it is meant to be. It’s happened to me before, even at GM, at a few jobs (layoff), never performance based but nonetheless. Each time it’s happened to me, while stressful, my blood pressure goes down, and I am healthier. I’ve always found something that helps boost my career with a new industry and new role and has broadened my horizons. The problem is the market and how long it takes, I didn’t always recover my salary. God will put me where I am supposed to be if it happens to me again. Praying for peace and calm, and greener pastures for those who are hit with this. Praying for peace and calm for those that aren’t.

Obviously, there’s no way to know if the folks on Reddit are actually GM employees and, of course, those cut will not have a positive view of it. Still, mandating that 5% of people have to be below the line is a blunt way of removing salaried employees.

Dealers Also Care About Vehicle Affordability

There are plenty of measures for vehicle affordability, like the above affordability index from Cox/Moody’s. In general, prices are coming down from pandemic highs, so cars do seem more affordable viewed this way. Is “not as terrible as it was” really a good measure of affordability? Conversely, car payments are super high now due in part to interest rates.

It’s a big issue, and dealers are also concerned about this according to a new survey by Automotive News:

More than half of survey respondents — 53 percent — selected vehicle affordability as one of the factors they’re most worried about in 2025. Their two other top concerns are lower new-vehicle profit margins, at 37 percent, and recession and economic uncertainty, at 29 percent.

Higher interest rates — the most-selected concern of dealership management who participated in the 2024 survey — remain a concern for 22 percent of respondents.

Much of the concern is over rates though, in general, dealers feel more optimistic about 2025 in part due to the conclusion of the election.

Kia Recalling Cars Over Manual Seats That Might Disable Airbags

At a hair over 80,000 vehicles, this new Niro EV recall isn’t the biggest out there at the moment. It is newsworthy, however, for how the vehicle might accidentally disable its own airbags.

Here’s how NHTSA describes the problem:

The floor wiring assembly located underneath the front passenger seat contains wires which control certain vehicle restraint systems. Repeated sliding adjustment of the manual front passenger seat may damage one or more of the wires in the floor wiring assembly due to variation in its routing. This may result in 1) the nondeployment of airbag(s) and/or seatbelt pretensioner(s), or 2) the inability to suppress the passenger frontal airbag for a child or small occupant, or 3) inadvertent deployment of the passenger side airbag (SAB).

The nondeployment of the airbag(s) and/or seatbelt pretensioner(s) in a crash sufficient to warrant a deployment, the inability to suppress the passenger frontal airbag for a child or small occupant, or the inadvertent deployment of the passenger side airbag increases the risk of injury.

Yikes, that’s bad.

What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD

The Bills are out of contention, so let’s try to cheer everyone who isn’t a KC fan up with some Eddie Murphy. Did you know that his girl likes to “Party All The Time”? It’s true. I like that the premise of this music video is “Yes, Eddie Murphy is really singing this song. We wrote his name on tape and everything.”

The Big Question

What do you consider the biggest sports comeback of all time? What about the biggest automotive comeback?

Top Photo Credit: MGM/UA Entertainment Co.