In the last 18 months alone, longtime Stellantis executive Tim Kuniskis led Dodge and RAM through some major releases. The 1,025-horsepower Challenger Demon 170 arrived in March of 2023. Soon after, Jay Leno partnered with the brand, the Hornet arrived, the Durango SRT Special Editions came out, and Dodge released the new Charger with a very weird promo. Power, speed, and performance were the focus across most of these launches. Then, on May 17th, just over two weeks after Kuniskis had praised the latest “hot” RAM pickup, the RHO, he silently retired. At the age of 57 and with 32 years within the company, he just decided it was time to hang it up.
The timing seemed odd to some fans in the community. Most media organizations simply reported the retirement, Automotive News mentioned it in its larger story titled “Stellantis exec departures raise alarm among U.S. dealers, salaried workers,” and some smaller outlets openly called it a surprise. Did Kuniskis really want to ride 1,025 horsepower off into the sunset? Was he forced out or maybe even quietly fired?
That’s what several conspiracy theorists online believe. Most are just everyday Mopar, Dodge, and Ram fans, like in the case of this DurangoSRT Forum post with 126 comments about it on the day of the announcement. Here are just a couple of those comments:
Well..ya had to figure sooner or later they were gonna kick ole Timmy to the curb…NOW for sure were done…like him..or hate him..he served the performance segment well…for as long as he could…interesting to see where he surfaces…he’s way too young to just ride off into the sunset
They forced out just about all engineering…why is it so hard to think that ole Timmy wasn’t forced out as well….I’m sure they have a plan…It’s just not to our liking…
On the Allpar forum, a post about it with 182 comments includes this sentiment:
Was Kuniskis pushed out? After 30+ years with the company, an abrupt retirement like this feels more like a case of “retire or you’re fired.”
Even a Mustang forum had one poster suspecting that this wasn’t a retirement:
He’s “retiring” while their sales are down 14% while the industry as a whole is up 3.1%
Others with similar thoughts are prominent members of the enthusiast community with tens of thousands of followers. Here are some videos about the departure, starting with RacerX’s titled “The Real Reason Tim Kuniskis Left Dodge? I finally speak out!” — which has 53,000 views:
Here’s another video from YouTuber “Reignited,” though it has under 6,000 views:
There are 24,000 views on the below video by OCMotivator titled “TIM KUNISKIS “RETIRES” FROM DODGE! I’M NOT BUYING IT! NOPE”:
There are 64,000 views on this Butter Da Insider video headlined “Dodge’s CEO FIRED for CALLING OUT STELLANTIS for cancelling Hemi V8?”:
Here’s another video from a smaller channel; the clip has about 9,100 views:
Among just these five videos shown above the creators have over half a million combined subscribers, and these videos in particular have over 150,000 views and 2,100+ comments combined. Some of these creators have made several videos regarding the situation, too. There’s a great deal of smoke around this topic. With that in mind, let’s throw some thumbtacks in the corkboard and break out the twine.
Birth Of The Brotherhood
If all of this sounds like much ado about a random automotive executive then you probably haven’t heard of the ‘Brotherhood of Muscle.’ It’s a close-knit community of high-horsepower Dodge fans, and to them, the man’s-man (as he portrays himself) Kuniskis is more than just an exec — he’s a legend. David Freiburger, a prominent enthusiast, TV personality, and wrencher who worked with Kuniskis had this to say about Kuniskis’ impact:
Dodge and Ram president Tim Kuniskis is out, retiring from Stellantis. IMO, no one has done more to drive muscle car culture in the 2000s, as he pushed the team and kept old models alive and exciting with new power and trim packages. He approved the type of OE advertising that had never before been seen, leading with lots of tire smoke. I remember him calling me behind the SEMA booth and saying, “what if we had a new car with a trans brake?” That became the Demon. Years later, “what if we had a car that needed a parachute?” That became the Demon 170. Crazy stuff. He and MotorTrend’s Eric Schwab were the impetus of our Roadkill Nights race. When they asked how to make it bigger, I said we had to have the race ON Woodward. Tim looked at someone in the room and said, “F$%# yeah! Let’s make that happen.” And he did. He’ll definitely be missed. End of an era.
Let’s backtrack and start at the beginning, though. Kuniskis became CEO of Dodge for the first time back in 2011. The Charger and Challenger hadn’t been out very long, but both needed a boost to stay relevant. Between the two models, sales were flat that year in spite of debuting after a long hiatus in 2008.
For the 2012 model year, the Charger SRT and SRT8 Super Bee arrived. Sales increased by 18 percent year over year for the sedan and by 9 percent for the Challenger. Kuniskis would follow that same strategy of bringing in new performance models and classic nomenclature in the years to come. This is where the Brotherhood comes in. Tim and Dodge made it cool to flex horsepower figures above all else. Vin Diesel and Bill Goldberg starred in several ads for the brand. The Brotherhood of Muscle became a marketing scheme that spoke to Dodge’s market loudly.
The 707-horsepower Hellcat twins arrived in 2015, two cars that sounded crazy on paper but that brought a lot of attention to Dodge. Remember that at the time, the most famous American sports car, the Corvette, made 650 horsepower in its most potent form. Since then, the automaker has never really relinquished the horsepower crown.
When the Camaro and Mustang moved away from a focus on the drag strip the Challenger and Charger embraced it. From 2015 through 2019, Kuniskis shifted to various roles focused on passenger cars in North America as the global head for Alfa Romeo and Maserati while also serving as the director of marketing for Fiat for a short time. Then, in 2021, he returned to lead Dodge again. Despite very few serious updates to the Challenger, it beat the Mustang and Camaro in sales for 2021 and 2022. In 2023, when it went out of production it lost to the Mustang by fewer than 4,000 units.
In some ways, Kuniskis’ tenures have been a big middle finger to those who are a little more eco-conscious, or at least that’s the way fans talk about him. On the day of his retirement here are just a few things fans said: “Thanks, Tim for making 800HP (not to mention 1025HP) muscle cars from the factory a reality. It’s been a fun ride!” Here’s another: “Automotive history will remember him as one of the greats given enough time.” And: “I figure Tim was given 2 options and chose ‘to retire’ (the guy is like 50, so I royally doubt he’s retiring).”
Kuniskis is like a holy horsepower prophet to many Mopar fans, which is why we’re seeing so many conspiracy theories.
Kuniskis Says The CEO ‘Burned Our Boats’
Of course, time rolling on is a force powerful enough that not even an executive as successful as Kuniskis can stop it. Stellantis has big plans under its Dare Forward 2030 banner. According to Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares (shown above), “We are expanding our vision, breaking the limits, and embracing a new mindset.”
That’s all just fancy PR speak for a bunch of goals (albeit ones good for the environment) related to climate change that the company wants to hit by 2030.
Here’s where the “villain” in the eyes of the Brotherhood comes in. Tavares is the first CEO of Stellantis. He made $39.5 million last year, up from $20.5 million in 2021, which was already enough for both French presidential hopefuls at the time to call his compensation package “shocking.”
Stellantis has a big vision for the automaker that’s driven by profits the same as any other company. Under Tavares though, the cost-cutting has been “ruthless,” according to some reports.
If Kuniskis is Ricky Bobby who just “wants to drive fast” then, in some folks’ eyes, Tavares, in his European business suits, is the perfect Jean Girard foil.
“I’m here to make Stellantis successful. When I talk to a blue-collar worker about the goals I set for his plant, I tell him: ‘It’s demanding but if you don’t meet these goals, you’ll be in a vulnerable position. Only performance protects,'” Tavares told Le Monde in 2023.
Did he look at Kuniskis as a blue-collar worker? Tavares’ desire to shave costs, impact the bottom line above all else, and increase the company’s stock price required Dodge and RAM to change. These are all thoughts going through Dodge fans’ conspiracy-filled heads right now.
Part of Taveres’s plan was eliminating the use of carbon credits, and that hit Dodge and RAM’s bottom line in a huge way. Each was leveraging the use of said credits to keep making iron-block V8s. Don’t take my word for it, Tim said that himself. Early in 2024, he spoke at a Stellantis “Fireside Chat” and he sort of calls out Tavares:
“Our CEO has made it very easy for us to focus on it. And he did that by not allowing us to ever buy a single credit, I mean it’s not even a topic of discussion. We’re not buying credits, we’re not going to do that. And not having that mental safety blanket really forces you to self-regulate, it forces you to make the tough calls, and we literally adjust our plans on a monthly basis based on where we see the trajectory of compliance. Ram is a great example of that. If we had that safety blanket of buying credits we’d still be making that ancient iron block HEMI V8 that everybody loves… It’s super tough but the CEO, he burned our boats,” said Kuniskis.
Let’s Talk Rumors
We’ve quoted some of the rumors in the previous paragraphs, but there are plenty more. If you go to YouTube, you’ll find out from the creators mentioned in the intro that the departure of Kuniskis was apparently not an accident, but the work of the “evil” Carlos Tavares.
In short, they say that Carlos Tavares didn’t jive with Kuniskis and either forced him to leave or straight-up fired him. In long, the rift between the two men had been brewing for some time, some say. The fireside chat situation was the first clear point where Kuniskis not once but twice laid the death of the HEMI V8 on the shoulders of Tavares. Less than 90 days later, he retired without a word.
Does that sound like the kind of thing a person like Tim would do? I’ve spent a lot of time watching all the videos and conspiracy theories from the Mopar faithful and, I must admit, I’m starting to find it a little compelling. Perhaps it’s Stockholm Syndrome, but after hours and hours of viewing these videos, I feel like Kuniskis would more likely have had a public party on his last day and invited the Brotherhood to set up shop with its own personal Fast & Furious cosplay at Dodge headquarters.
On top of that, why would Kuniskis accept a role as head of the RAM brand in July of 2023 only to retire less than 12 months later? If he knew he was retiring wouldn’t he tell Stellantis that? Wouldn’t his role have then been something like interim CEO?
It took almost no time after these videos went up for Dodge fans to start coming out of the woodwork with rumors of things Kuniskis allegedly said in private settings. This one, the top comment from the video embedded above, might be the most on the nose.
“I know Tim in a professional way, have spoken with him monthly for the last several years. Back in December, I was talking to him and Ralph Gilles at an event, and Tim shook his head and said, “The electrics aren’t going to work, nobody wants them and we don’t have the infrastructure. None of us want to build them. It’s going to be like the housing bubble all over again.”
Again, this is a random person on the internet claiming these things. For all we know, it’s an actual princess of England just having a little fun in the comment section.
Nevertheless, according to the alleged source, Kuniskis went further:
“When it doesn’t work, the government is going to hold hearings and point fingers at us for forcing people to buy these cars we knew wouldn’t work, because the government doesn’t take the blame for anything. I’m not gonna’ be here when that happens.” Adding to that, Ralph smiled and said, “I don’t think any of us are going to be here for that!” So, watch for Ralph Gilles to be the next big card to fall.”
While that comment might be completely bogus, that same sentiment is everywhere across forums, comment sections, and other corners of the internet. “Was Kuniskis pushed out? After 30+ years with the company, an abrupt retirement like this feels more like a case of “retire or you’re fired” said one fan.
Several have posted their own videos online about this whole situation. The theories include stuff like Stellantis selling Dodge off to a Chinese company, Tim taking over Dodge again when Stellantis does sell it, Tim leaving because he thinks the new Charger is bound to fail, and more.
Then there are dealers openly saying things like: “Most all of the dealers understand the challenges you faced under the Stellantis corporate structure as we face many of the same challenges.” No doubt, anyone in a position like Kuniskis is going to face corporate pressure, but is this smoke just the Internet being the Internet or something more?
What Do Stellantis and Tim say?
Stellantis had very little to say about the matter other than naming the two people taking over for Tim. Tavares then went as far as to say “I want to take the opportunity to warmly thank Tim for his passion, commitment, and contributions to Stellantis and in defining the vision of the future electrified Ram and Dodge brands. I wish him well in his retirement.”
So granted, Carlos and Tim didn’t work together the entire time that the latter was at Stellantis, FCA, and Chrysler but still, over three decades of dedication and your boss wraps up his thanks in two measly sentences? I’ve literally thanked fast food workers I’ll never see again more profusely for getting my order right one time.
We’ve reached out to Stellantis about all of this. Is it aware of the rumors? Does it have any other info it can share to quiet them? Maybe they’ll tell us, but so far they have not responded.
What about Kuniskis, though? He’s said exactly nothing at this point. Technically, he remained in the role until June and has made no public statement about the change. Every time we turn a corner it seems to continue to point back at little potential seeds of truth within this conspiracy.
We’ve also reached out to Kuniksis on what we believe is his phone number, but haven’t heard back.
Could All of It Be True?
Sure, but technically lots of automotive conspiracy theories could be, despite being lightyears from even being close to legitimate. The main reason we’re writing about it is that we can’t think of any other situation where the retirement of an automotive executive created such a huge firestorm of online theorizing.
The thread of truth mentioned in some of the conspiracies is that Kuniskis openly admitted in that fireside chat that if his boss hadn’t mandated the death of the V8, he’d have tried to keep it around for longer. Add in the fact that Kuniskis hasn’t made a public statement about his decision to retire, mix in just a bit of fan theory, and boom, we have all the makings of a conspiracy.
At the same time, let’s not misunderstand who Tavares is. He may be focused on the bottom line, but Tavares loves speed and performance, too. He volunteered to be a track marshall at Estoril when he was a teenager. He’s participated in the Monte-Carlo Rally, classic Formula 3 racing, and owns a classic car restoration company. He says he’d turn down a meeting with a head of state if he had a race scheduled.
In addition, 32 years at any job is a long time. Retiring after all of those mostly successful years likely leaves him with a nice rainy-day fund as well. When people see organizational changes on the horizon, sometimes they choose to simply move on rather than fight the winds of change.
That’s not to say that Kuniskis won’t pop up somewhere else as some suggested. Ford is still happily making V8s and if not there, maybe he could spur the production of others somewhere else.
Of course, if Ralph Gilles “retires” in the next twelve months, you heard it here second.
Like I said, these are mostly just Dodge fans disappointed that Kuniskis is gone. Nobody at Stellantis has said anything about the departure being anything but amicable; still, while they may all be bunk, if anything, these conspiracy theories speak to just how strong of a brand he built for himself among diehard high-horsepower MOPAR fans.
My pension says I’m clear to leave at 57. Why the hell would I stay longer? He’s put in 2 more years than I’ll have done by 57! Maybe he just wants to, you know, enjoy life?
I retired at 56 and it was the second best thing I ever did… so….
I get the love of ICEs, but I don’t get the anti-EV rage. Here’s the bottom line: they’re faster. You can get 1000hp pickups that cost $15 to recharge at home. They’re quiet and smooth. ICE engines sound great but not at $90 a fill-up where I have to go to the sketchiest place I ever visit regularly.
They’re amazing.
But I can swing the lease payment on a gas F150 or Ram at 500 a month, not the 1000 a month payment for an electric truck that runs 75000 bucks
FWIW I looked this up, not thinking you can still get a truck for $500 a month. But the 2023 F150 Lighting’s got a $299 lease right now (https://www.buyfordnow.com/paramus-bridgeport-white-plains/incentives-offers/evs-hybrids). But I really get your general point – they’re too expensive and the used market isn’t any good yet.
I would run out and lease a Lightning for 600 a month RIGHT NOW. But in Ohio, that’s not a real lease. We have a Ford dealership, Its about 850 a month for me with 850 down. Cant justify it.
Check the Fine print there: 299 a month, 5969 cash down, Tax and title extra.
Tax would be around 2500, plus 250 doc, 35 title, and 5969, and you have $8,750 out of pocket to get that lease.
I wouldn’t call it rage but my biggest gripes with EV’s are:
1) too much tech and frustrating design choices (door handles, infotainment etc.)
2) cost, the last car loan I got the max I was approved for was $6k, EVs are new and too expensive on the upfront cost.
A number of years ago, I worked for a place that put a new guy in charge of our region. I very shortly figured out that he had a business philosophy that I really couldn’t live with. Nonetheless, for various reasons, I tried staying with the company despite banging heads with him on numerous occasions. I finally did that one too many times and got myself fired. Seems to me that maybe Kuniskis is a lot smarter than me (not surprising) and figured out that he couldn’t live with the the new guy’s business philosophy and took the graceful exit. Assuming he doesn’t have some sort of health issue, he’ll likely show up again somewhere else in the automotive world.
That happened to me too, sort of, backwards. I got a new manager over my team plus a few others and after about 4 months I was so done with him and where it looked the company was going so I scheduled a meeting with the CTO for Monday of the next week to give me time to cool off / change my mind and my plan was to put in my 2 weeks notice and give him a list of the 131 things my new manager told us to do that week which contradicted something else he told us to do that week then tried to blame us for when item 2 wasn’t done. I was so pissed when the CTO scheduled a multi-department wide meeting earlier that Monday for exactly the time I was supposed to quit, but the meeting ended up being about the guy getting fired and how things will now be restructured. He came up to me after the meeting appologizing about the timing and asked me what I wanted to talk about. My response was something like “here’s 131 reasons from last week that I want to say thank you for what you just did, and I guess I no longer need to resign, so thank you again.”
Oh, I still work there 14 years later.
That’s a good story, gives me hope for corporate hellscape
I’m also not gonna’ be here when “the government is going to hold hearings and point fingers at us for forcing people to buy these cars we knew wouldn’t work.”
- Bob
Frankly to me my feelings echo the ones Tim supposedly had.
I dont want electric, wont pay for it, feel its a fad.
Every time I am against a big fad you know what happens? No one ever remembers and when it fades they rob you of your “told ya so”s.
I have one of the first hybrids. Battery has been dead for the longest time. Car still drives because thankfully it also has a gas engine. Otherwise it would be in a landfill. Without the battery, I still get 70-90mpg because the car weighs 1700lbs with a manual transmission.
Electric cars remove all the fun, come with insurance reporting and location tracking which I will never accept. Somehow the original concept of them being cheaper to drive per mile went out the window awhile ago and at 80mpg I handily outdo what Tesla drivers pay and I have excellent heating in the Michigan winters without loss of range.
I simply agree with Tim. He’s being forced into a fad that he doesn’t agree with. He knows a big “told ya so” aint gonna work when the Fad is up.
“The world was a different place back then”. “Everyone had their suspicions back then….”. “No one could have known and we did what we thought was right”
Blablabla the normies who are totally thinking the fad is reality are always the ones spouting the above lines when we swoop in for one glory moment to rub their faces in its failure.
So yeah he is out. Totally get it.
Electric vehicles are the fastest growing segment in the auto industry.
I don’t agree that it’s a fad, but “fastest growing segment of the industry” is not exactly a counter argument to that. NFTs were the fastest growing thing in the tech industry for a bit, but those were absolutely a fad.
Whether you like it or not, EVs are not a fad. The world literally has a finite amount of petroleum to give, and alternative fuel sources for them like hydrogen or other forms of synthetic fuels usually require petroleum at some point in the process.
I get that you’re sharing your Honda Insight anecdote to try and make a point about ICE vs EV reliability. However, there have been tons poorly designed ICEs with horrific reputations for reliability. Countless numbers of vehicles have been recycled because of failed engines or transmissions due to design flaws. Your Honda insight’s battery failed not because it has a battery, but because it’s a terrible flawed battery design that Honda could never get right.
People had the same concerns about the Prius, but it turns out the battery was one of the most reliable components of them. Very regularly you see Prius batteries with over 250,000 miles on them without issue. In fact, on some of the newer Prii, it’s the ICE that runs into problems first.
IDK, it seems to me that he built a house of cards on a brand emphasizing an outdated image that was never going to age well. Cool man, thanks for the short term profit bump, I see that you screwed our long term future. You should totally stick around…
Additionally, although it might not be on the Dodge CEO, there are massive gaps in the current lineup. Like, who tf planned the Durango successor timeline? How do you let that gap happen?
So you’re saying the Hornet doesn’t fit in your age demographic then?
I’m saying it’s a pretty trash product
LOL! Can’t argue that. I have the same feelings about the Hurricane 6. No dipsticks, wear items you can’t reach without pulling the cab on the Ram. Are they trying to be Ford?
I’ve never bought a new truck for reasons like this. I always wait until they’ve marinated in the real world for a little bit and then try to grab a lower mileage example of something with a decent reputation. Some of the decisions are bonkers
Definitely.
I think we’re entering a real low point in used pickup truck futures. From the cabs needing to be pulled on Ford Super Duties, to entire dash tear downs on 02 and newer GM pickups (1500 and up), to cylinder deactivation woes as well as other issues it’s a mess out there.
Good luck.
This is the smart move. I like the marinated in the world phrase. As long as it didn’t marinate in a salt belt region.
Yea, I’ll leave salt curing for my steaks LOL
Short term profit? The Charger had a 17 year run, the Challenger was around for 15, and they maintained consistent sales even as they aged, the Challenger was even still showing year over year growth after a decade on the market. The Dodge brand has since been cut down to just 2 models, one of which is brand new, but is a rebadged Alfa Romeo and has totally flopped. Its the new direction of the brand that’s failing, the previous direction was raking in cash and showed no sign of stopping.
Did you read the article? Tim consistently emphasized the Charger and Challenger V8 middle finger. It eventually came at the expense at the rest of lineup. He was CEO from 2011 to 2015, and from 2021 until this year. Each time, he upped the ante on the “Brotherhood of Muscle”. Yes, two tenures totaling about 9 years is short term for an automaker. If we count 2011 as the true epoch, the. 13 years is also short. Platforms last a decade or more. The dude took Dodge’s questionable He-Man image, force fed it steroids, and gave it no future once literally two models ran out their life
I don’t know if you’re looking around right now, but it sure doesn’t look like “loud-ass overpowered muscle car” is an image on the outs in this country. Maybe the sin is not having it in a big enough truck or something, but I’m surprised Dodge isn’t selling red baseball caps with how well they seem to have found the pulse of a pretty substantial part of the population.
Well because of those Hemi V8 sales, FCA/Stellantis WAS giving Tesla LOTS of money for carbon credits. And as a TSLA shareholder, I say THANK YOU!
But that carbon credit trading system is actually being wound down in some places like the EU by 2030 or so.
That means doing what they have been doing won’t work in the not-too-distant future.
So my gut tells me they made some drastic strategic shifts as a response to this upcoming reality.
They ditched the Hemi V8 completely and came out with a powerful turbo inline six based on the turbo inline 4 hurricane engine as a short term solution to get those CO2 emissions down I imagine that alone was a tough pill to swallow for many in the company.
And for the longer term, are coming out with BEVs starting with a 2 door electric Charger later this year… along with a lower-powered and likely cheaper inline-6 version. And I’m gonna bet that’s also a tough pill to swallow for at least some in the company as well.
And I suspect all the highest power SRT versions are probably gonna be BEVs in the future.
And it just may be that Kuniskis had some disagreements with direction and product mix, hence the ‘retirement’.
Personally I think this is one of the better strategic decisions Stellantis has made and it’s something FCA should have been doing at least 5 years ago.
But radical change like this WILL meet at least some internal resistance in big companies like this. And some of that resistance will play out in the form of some people leaving.
Anyone cultivating the Harley Davidson of automobiles was going to face the music at some point
So when everyone steals a Tesla Plaid to party with will it be called a Street Makeover?
Thank God for those videos. I’ve had a hankering to watch several hours of doughy manbabies crying about how they can’t buy their adult Powerwheels any more because of EVs or Obama or something.
“I can’t buy my 800hp Gender-Affirming vehicle anymore! (even tho I constantly complain about the $100 fillups I can’t afford to run the thing) Waaaaaahhhhhh!!”
“Hey – Here’s a nice big 1000hp vehicle that looks more like the old thing you like and makes crazy “vroom-vroom” noises! All you gotta do is plug it in where your dryer used to be every night…”
“It’s a CONSPIRACY!!!! Don’t force me to buy things I don’t want!!!!”
*throws body on ground, kicks feet and screams*
Nah, They’ll find a late 70’s Volare and gut the cat and muffler instead.
No kidding.
“Nobody wants them” he claims. Yet here I am typing this from inside an EV.
People (especially car people) may hate to hear it, but EVs are coming- especially when you consider that the vast majority of car buyers aren’t making a political choice, they just want something to go from A to B comfortably, reliably, and cheaply. And EVs increasingly check those boxes. I plug mine in every night, it’s ready when I get up in the morning, all ror the cost of a couple dollars a week. Thy have less components to fail compared to an ICE, and require less regular maintenance.
And here’s a shocker- it’s a hoot to drive! Low CG, stuff suspension, and instant torque make it feel like driving a little go-kart.
Will I always love my old muscle cars, Jeeps, and old trucks? Absolutely. But for a daily, EVs increasingly make sense for more and more people.
Meh my 1700lb car has to wait on these fools who use all that power to pass me *right* before a corner I could take at speed and SLAM on the brakes to get 6000lbs around the corner.
Then after the faceplant they zoom off. Super annoying honestly. EVs are fat and cant corner. Stop passing Aluminum Monocoques before a corner. Your car aint fast except in straight lines.
Some people enjoy cars that are fast in straight lines.
And, no matter how much safer the average vehicle is, in a collision mass tends to win.
…unless it’s a Maserati Gran Turismo.
Or a Lucid Air.
Or a Porsche Taycan
Or an Audi E Tron
Or a Hyundai Ioniq 5N
Or a Kia EV6 GT
Etc
Etc
Etc
Not all EVs are 3 ton lumbering behemoths.
Just like all ICEs aren’t BroDozers.
“ Your car aint fast except in straight lines.”
Neither are Dodges… and they are slower than EVs.
Yep. They’ll just buy the worn-out, clapped out remnants and keep them on the road as long as possible polluting the air as long as possible. (Not every state has regulations and mandatory testing as California, and the north east coast.)
Might be a little column a, and a little column b.
I’m sure Tavares was happy enough to send him packing, but I’m sure Kuniskis was equally enthusiastic about leaving. I mean, look at the state of Stellantis. Is there really anything good happening at that company?
It makes me sad because I think Dodge has something to offer as a brand, and I currently own a Voyager (Pacifica) from the famous brand with just one van. But let’s get real, Stellantis is likely going to be the Cronenburg corporate entity to finally kill both brands. And I wouldn’t be shocked if it happened sooner rather than later.
I think this is the correct take. I do not see a meeting of the minds every happening between these two and Carlos is the big boss. Honestly what product does Stellantis NA have besides Ram and Jeep? Both Dodge and Chrysler are dead men walking. The march to EV is inevitable.
Tim got the Hell out of Dodge. He’ll be all right.
I could definitely see him being asked to retire or be fired. This all seems to point to Tim just saying fuck it and leaving after realizing that he would probably end up in the retire or fired category. I’m no fan of Tavares, he seems like a giant asshole, but what got Dodge/Ram here isn’t going to get them over there. I just think it was monumentally stupid to not even allow the brands, well Dodge, to have actual replacements. Dodge very much feels like a brand they are going to kill off and I hope that’s not the truth. They could have put that straight 6 in a bunch of Dodge vehicles and still rock the performance motto. It’s a shame.
For 20+ years we’ve looked at corporate executives as the Boomers that they’ve traditionally been. One of the characteristics of Boomers is that they often identify themselves in terms of their careers.
This guy is (early) GenX. Such folks are far less likely to tie their self-worth to their careers, and strive for more balance in their lives. So maybe this guy was satisfied with what he’d accomplished in his career, felt financially stable (and/or received a nice cash offer to leave) and just bowed out to move on with his life.
I’m about his age, and if somebody made me a nice offer to quit working and do more interesting things with my life, I’d take it, too.
This guy has the option to go do fun stuff with a sweet pension and 401k or continue doing the corp stuff somewhere else for likely more money. Either of which is likely much more satisfying than working for Stellantis in 2024. Nothing succeeds like success.
This is what I’m thinking. He saw Dodge or Stellantis as not something he wanted to be a part of so retirement became a good option. He might end up at a competitor or enjoy himself for years
I’m just a bit older, about as old as Gen-X gets. If the means to carry on without working fell into my lap tonight, I’d be handing in my two weeks’ notice at 8AM tomorrow morning. And I’d cut it shorter if there was any whining or weaseling by management. I have a decent job, but it’s a means to an end. It’s not my identity. The sentiment tracks.
Tim likely won’t be saying anything as I’m sure he has some sort of NDA tied to the retirement, and may have a non-compete tied to some stock vesting as well, so its in his best interest to lie low no matter the reason. My guess is we’ll see him pop up elsewhere in a few years once that non-compete expires. The language from Tavares is about as boilerplate as it could be, which says a lot.
Didn’t the supreme court rule noncompetes null and void?
No, that was an administrative decision at the Federal Trade Commission. Big business is appealing, and because the decision favors labor, the Supreme Court is probably going to reverse that decision.
Thanks for the clarification.
and on top of that the idea was to eliminate non competes for positions that don’t warrant them. Someone like Tim who was at the top and has a ton of trade secrets is justifiable in having a non-compete. Basically if you’re high up enough that they’ll pay you to not work for the duration of the noncompete its ok, but if you’re an analyst that makes 65k a year you should be free to move around.
There is no justification for taking away a person’s method of making a living according to their best talents, even for top tier employees. I can’t imagine a situation where they are ever warranted.
A contract that pays someone not to work isn’t really a non-compete, but can be the functional equivalent.
And if someone breaches trade secrets or poaches clients using inside information, the company is still free to sue them into oblivion.
I mean…. Stellantis is so driven on reducing every cost possible and raising the prices of their products, it’d be easy to decide to retire or quit instead of staying.
He probably chose to retire, in my opinion though. He’s the only CEO of a brand that actually made sense of anything throughout either FCA or PSA.
Honestly, I just thought of this: he probably knew what was gonna happen with Ram and didn’t want to be held responsible. The long #3 best-selling truck (unless the Sierra gets different engines, platforms, AND bodies, it’s still just a Silverado, and should be grouped as such) lost its standing to Toyota. Toyota selling more full-size trucks in America than Ram? Yeah, that’s not good.
Toyota isn’t selling more full-size trucks than Ram. That headline was very misleading.
Based on a January to April Market share report, Toyota has had 2 months of roughly 10% and two months of 15% market share, while Ram has had one month of 15%, two months of roughly 13%, and one month of 10% market share during the same time. If Toyota isn’t outselling Ram yet, it’s far closer than you may realize. I wouldn’t be surprised that if they haven’t outsold Ram yet, they will at the end of the year.
In Q1 of 2024 Ram sold 89,417 trucks. Toyota sold 36,215 trucks. They gave Ram a huge head start if they are going to outsell them.
Could he have also been fired because the Hornet which in theory should be the bread and butter of the Dodge range has been a flop? He can’t easily say that the Hornet was forced upon Dodge either as he was head of Alfa Romeo when the Tonale/ Hornet was in development.
The Hornet is a flawed product, but I maintain that even with all its other shortcomings, if the starting price of the base model was $5,000 lower and the top of the line trim started $9,000 lower, it would have been selling acceptably all along. Mediocre product and high price is a terrible combination, but a mediocre product at a low price is exactly where Dodge excels , that’s how they moved 106,000 Journeys in 2016 alone.
Did he get pushed to leave? Sure, that’s most likely. Happens all the time in executive-level positions. They get to “retire” or “step down for personal reasons” or whatever and it really means that they were ousted without it looking like a blemish on their record. He’ll probably pop up somewhere else soon.
Their financials are practically begging for a shakeup. They’ll make a few changes and hope the right leadership will turn things around. In the meantime, shareholders will look at executive changes as an indicator that Stellantis is going to get back on track, so the stock will probably go up or at least remain steady.
I’m not a day trader, so I’m not betting my money on that, but this all looks like very normal corporate moves when profits are down.
It’s really no surprise that he left abruptly. It seems like Stellantis is going out of their way to screw things up, and he didn’t want to stick around. They discontinued volume cars without replacing them, leaving dealers who are already upset about pricing high and dry. They haven’t responded to any customer feedback either, since build quality still sucks and common issues haven’t been addressed (e.g., Jeep’s hinge corrosion, pentastar/hemi tick, etc…). Effectively, they’ve alienated their customer base. People go for Stellantis products because they want something that is cheap and effective – weather that’s the Grand Caravan, which used to severely undercut any other minivan in price while still being very practical, or the Challenger, which was an incredible horsepower-per-dollar value. Of course, the Wrangler is an exception here because despite it’s $4500 price for an automatic transmission and the aforementioned corrosion issues, people are still buying them! Otherwise, sales are plummeting – I would’ve left if I were him.
my canary in the coal mine is Ralph Gilles, he’s been obedient through numerous regimes. If he goes and its not due to age shits hitting the fan.
The owner of my dealership went to the Dealer Conference for the Great lakes region, said one of the Dealer Prinicipals lives a few houses down from Kuniskis, and that he “Got the hell out of there when he figured out what Stellantis has planned”
True or not I can’t say, but I do believe it.
I could believe that also. With so many European car manufacturers becoming EV focused lately, he may have felt useless and apathetic for his future at Stellantis. He sounds like shares a similar opinion towards EVs as David Freiburger. David has been very open that EVs are just not his thing and will never own one.
If you’re the type of person who thinks BEVs are NOT the future, and if Kuniskis is one of those types, then he likely got out because he believed that company’s planned shift to BEVs will sink the company.
Well, as I sit here on a lot in rural Ohio that used to hold renegades, journeys, caravans, cherokees, 300s, chargers, challengers, and durangos, but all axed with no replacements, and the only new stuff coming anytime soon is a pair of $70,000 EV Jeeps, and a Charger that has no option for a Hemi, I gotta tell ya, the mood here isn’t much better.
I believe EVs and hybrids need to be the future.
They just wont be the future of Jefferson county ohio anytime soon.
“According to Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares (shown above)”
That’s not Carlos…I’ve never seen that dude before
I Lovett!
Yeah, that’s obviously a picture of Stephen Merchant. Completely non-auto related.
Best running gag on the site so far.
I don’t understand why they say the V8 had to die off when various other companies are coming out with new V8 engines almost every year. It wouldn’t have been impossible to make a hybrid system work with the “Hemi iron block” even if the engineering was very lazily done. Heck they could’ve taken off the shelf components from Magna and made it work while also not having to buy carbon credits.
Or even adjust the product mix, build a hybrid 6 cylinder base model Charger/Challenger and price the V8 behind a significant paywall as a high performance option, offset it in-house vs buying credits from outside
They could even go the performance car hybrid route and make it so the car only starts in EV mode unless the user turns it on. That way a majority of the EPA testing will be done in full EV mode and when it runs out of charge, it’ll just run as a hybrid. From what my suppliers have said, we know for a fact the Charger/Challenger platform has a lot of unused space in the underbody that could easily fit a structural battery pack, cooling, and connections. They’re also so heavy that another 300kgs wouldn’t even make a difference to the way it drives.
“ It wouldn’t have been impossible to make a hybrid system work with the “Hemi iron block” even if the engineering was very lazily done.”
Dodge’s specialty!
Jet fuel can’t melt iron HEMI’s or something like that.
/obvious sarcasm/
Kuniskis likely isn’t going to say anything as a condition of whatever early buy out he accepted.
Lee Iacocca ended up losing most of his retirement perks and being banned from company property for criticizing the company’s new leadership. And also because he served as a consultant to a company attempting a hostile takeover, it actually might have been more the second thing, but, still.