This I took Latin in high school, with the idea that it would help set me up to learn any language. That’s not how it happened, as any of my college Italian professors can attest. Maybe the most important thing I learned was that Joaquin Phoenix made the wrong gesture to spare Russell Crowe’s life in the movie Gladiator, which came out while I was in highh school.
A thumbs-up, back in Roman days, indicated you wanted a gladiator killed, whereas a thumbs-down meant “put your sword in the ground.” The actor and director made the right choice, because it would be hilarious if Phoenix gave a goofy thumbs-up at that moment. It just wouldn’t work.
You know what also doesn’t work? All 14 Stellantis brands existing at once. It’s enough slices! The Chairman of Stellantis is out looking for a new CEO to replace The Morning Dump’s favorite Carlos Tavares, and the big question is: What to do with all these brands?
Tavares called this a “Darwinian period” in the automotive industry, and one way automakers survive is through cooperation. GM and Honda, for instance, teamed up on hydrogen fuel cells. No more! Honda is not planning to work with GM on this technology anymore. One place where GM and Honda teamed up is with the Prologue, which continues to be a great seller in the EV space.
Germany had an election and the big issue was the economy. Will a “Kenya coalition” help save Volkswagen?
It’s Not Clear Stellantis Saves Much By Absorbing Chrysler And Ram, So Europe Is Probably The Target
Was I attempting to be provocative when I wrote “Jeep” in the headline? Yeah, of course. If a CEO candidate goes to Stellantis Chairman John Elkann and says “My first order of business is to absorb Jeep into Citroën” that candidate is going to be defenestrated from the conference room without delay.
Jeep is the one brand out of all Stellantis brands that has a strong identity, the ability to charge high-ish prices for vehicles, and can keep the company solvent. Ram, too, is one of those brands, though there’s some logic to absorbing Ram back into Dodge.
I mention this because that’s the big question Elkann has for the next CEO, according to this report from Reuters:
A source familiar with Elkann’s thinking told Reuters that the topic was a priority, and that any applicant for chief executive without an idea about the brands “is not the right candidate.”
Of course not! Could you imagine showing up and getting the question and being like “Uhhhh… we should cut Simca.” Stellantis only has these brands because it’s the awkward tie-up of PSA (which was the awkward tie-up of Peugeot and Citroën/DS) and FCA (which was the awkward tie-up of Fiat’s too many brands and Chrysler’s too many brands). Oh, and Opel. I keep forgetting Opel. Am I sad that Oldsmobile and Mercury are gone? Of course. Are Ford and GM worse off because those brands are gone? Probably not.
Hard decisions will have to be made and it’s unlikely that most of those decisions will be at the expense of American brands. Why? As explained in the piece:
Jeep accounted for at least 15 percent of Stellantis’ global sales in 2024, according to Reuters calculations, and Chrysler and Dodge around 3 percent each.
“If I were to have a magic wand … I would probably say Jeep should absorb Chrysler and Ram should absorb Dodge,” said Erin Keating of research firm Cox Automotive.
“But you are not saving a ton of money,” she added, as the four “each have their own brand equity,” complement each other in terms of range and share the same dealers.
What do you really save by Jeep absorbing Chrysler? Not much, although a Jeep-branded minivan? That’s actually a great idea. I’d never once had the thought. I’ve always assumed Dodge would just absorb Chrysler and we’d get a “Caravan” back but, yeah, now that you mention it a Jeep minivan makes sense in the way that “Me espresso” makes sense. Syntaxtually it’s a mess. Emotionally it’s a winner.
If anything gets cut it’s European brands. Lancia makes one car. Citroën has a broader lineup, but why does Stellantis need an Opel, Citroen, DS, and Peugeot version of the same car? The answer is that they do not.
Renault is in the same market and is much more successful, partially because it has fewer than half the brands. We’ve done this exercise before, of course, and I still think Lancia and DS are the first to go. Sell Maserati. Alfa gets one high-end, Ferrari-derived sports car.
That’s it.
GM And Honda No Longer Co-Developing Hydrogen Fuel Cells
I will once again go on record saying that I do not understand hydrogen as a power source for passenger vehicles. It doesn’t work. Charging times for EVs will come down way faster than new hydrogen filling stations will go up. Maybe for heavy trucks, it’s a solution. Maybe.
Honda and GM are both car companies that harbor the illusion that people want to buy hydrogen-powered cars, though they were at least smart enough to divide the expense by working together. The new Honda CR-V e:FCEV, for instance, has a jointly developed system.
That is not going to be true for the next generation car, if there is such a thing, according to Automotive News:
Honda Motor Co. is ditching longtime partner General Motors to go solo in developing and manufacturing its own next-generation hydrogen fuel cell system, the latest sign of unwinding ties between the Japanese and American carmakers amid shifting auto alliances.
Honda announced its upcoming fuel cell system Feb. 19 at the International Hydrogen & Fuel Cell Expo in Tokyo. The setup achieves double the durability and triple the volumetric power density at half the cost of the current system developed with GM and produced in the U.S.
Honda said the greater power density, a measure of the amount of energy churned out per unit volume, allows the system to be more compact so it can fit flexibly into different layouts.
Honda, for its part, is attempting to work more with Nissan while GM is collaborating more with Hyundai.
The ID.4 Is Back In The Mix
There are some people who, now, would never buy a Tesla because of the association with Elon Musk. I tend to think many people don’t care or, at least, would be persuaded by a lower price to buy one.
My guess is that if sales look really low at Tesla this quarter, we’ll see Musk offer a truly phenomenal low price on a “cheap Tesla” that’ll get a trillion pre-orders. In the interim, perhaps the best measure of the growing competitiveness of non-Tesla automakers is the resurrection of the VW ID.4 and the continuing success of the Honda Prologue.
Based on registration data, EV sales were up almost 30% year-over-year in January as people worked quickly to take advantage of the IRA tax credit while it was still in effect, according to Cox Automotive:
January marked the tenth consecutive month with over 100,000 units sold. Following a record month in December, when U.S. EV sales reached the highest level ever, a month-over-month sales decline was expected. The top five selling models, ranked by sales volume, were the Tesla Model Y, Model 3, Volkswagen ID.4, Tesla Cybertruck, and Honda Prologue, together making up 54% of total EV sales for the month. Volkswagen ID.4 had a comeback month, with sales up 653% to reach 4,979 units.
I see the success of the Honda Prologue as stemming, in large part, from the halo that the brand gives any car. The fact that people keep leasing Prologues in spite of mediocre reviews seems to support this point.
Volkswagen doesn’t have that halo. So why is the Volkswagen selling better? Some of this is pent-up demand, likely, as the ID.4 was stop-saled due to a door handle issue. Some of it, of course, is cheap leases. There’s a price low enough that people will choose an ID.4 over an, arguably, better Mach-E or Ioniq 5. Is there some other “anyone but Musk” energy here? I don’t know.
Germany To Form A New Government
This weekend we got a new election in Germany, which is a big deal for automakers in that country as they’ve been on the struggle bus lately. As usual in a country with proportional representation, there’s no single winner. The Conservative CDU/CSU party won about 28.% of the seats. The right-wing AfD party got above 20% for the first time ever, though basically every other party agreed to keep them out of government and build a coalition without them.
What’s likely to be formed is a coalition government made up of the CDU/CSU (whose color is black), the center-right SPD (whose color is red), and the Greens, which came in 4th at 11.7%. This is the “Kenya Coalition” because the combined colors make a Kenyan flag. This replaces the stoplight coalition that included the FDP (yellow), which didn’t even make 5% and thus gets zero seats.
I’ve talked before about European competitiveness and the biggest issue, as I see it, is the lack of investment. Germany has a big issue with making investments and I’m not sure any one party did well enough to fix this issue. As Deutsche Welle notes:
The rise of Germany’s extremist fringes further complicates reform of a key element of German politics: the so-called debt brake which limits fresh borrowing to just 0.35% of GDP annually. It was enshrined in the constitution to keep German debt low, but is said to have hindered urgently needed public investments.
IW’s Bergmann also said that it’s particularly problematic as mainstream parties no longer hold the two-thirds majority in the new parliament needed to amend the constitution to reform the debt brake or pass special funds.
In addition, the massive gains of the AfD, which has doubled its result compared with the 2021 election, is worrying business leaders as they fear negative consequences when recruiting urgently needed foreign workers.
Good luck with all that.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
There’s a whole album from the band Seatbelts that’s basically the music from the spectacular anime show Cowboy Bebop. I am not, naturally, an anime person. I just never got into it. This show rules, though, and the songs, composed by Yoko Kanno, are worthy to listen to on their own. Start with “Tank” and don’t look back. Does this count as defiant jazz? Maybe.
The Big Question
You’re interviewing for the Stellantis CEO job and you have to cut three Stellantis brands immediately. What do you pick and why? Bonus, describe a Jeep Minivan.
Photo credit: Gladiator/Stellantis
Jeep Minivan, sounds like the Bishop has a new objective.
Matt (or anyone else who likes good music, anime or not) – do yourself a favor and go catch ‘Cowboy Bebop LIVE’ if they ever get anywhere near the area where you live. https://www.cowboybeboplive.com/ I took my son to go see them recently in San Antonio, and they blew both of us away with how good the show was. I was a fan of the show back when I was in college, but my son never saw it; despite that, as a huge music lover, he was hooked.
I am so disappointed that I missed this when it came through Lawrence, KS last month. I didn’t hear about it until the day of the show (a Tuesday) and couldn’t make it happen.
A Jeep Minivan is just a modern Jeep FC with sliding rear doors.
Welp, you got in with that take before I could. I’m totally down to see what The Bishop could do with that concept.
Just put sliding doors on a four door wrangler. Poof! Its a minivan now. Its got the right engine and creature comforts.
The only thing I want to know today is why do they have a dot in the ID.4 name but never say it in their ads? Ashamed of dots?
And I don’t want to hear any crap about it is easier to say, etc. If that is what you want to name it, then call it that!
I Up! you’re comment.
I’m shouting at clouds as we speak.
Dots leftover from all the umlauts they still had in stock after the whole Fahrvergnügen ad campaign died.
Killing Jeep would just not make sense. Jeep has been what companies have been buying and passing around since 1953ish.
Jeep is probably the most valuable brand in the Stellantis catalog right now, even with their sales issues. Only a complete idiot would kill Jeep.
Ram should have never been spun off into its own brand, Dodge had decades of heritage behind it. Kill the Ram brand and bring it back to Dodge to simplify marketing and dealership networks. No one calls them Ram trucks anyway.
Lancia is a dead-brand walking, kill the production and sell off the rights to some small-number auto maker who can turn out genuinely interesting cars. Maserati should do the same, sell it off since Stellantis is just building crappy bloated overpriced junk that wouldn’t beat its own plummeting resale value to the ground if you tossed it out of a plane.
Chrysler as a brand can also go, they only make one vehicle anyway. Kill it off and fold the minivan into one of the other brands like Dodge or even Citroen (which can also reabsorb DS).
I don’t want to see the Lancia brand die, so I like your idea of licensing it off to someone who actually gives a shit. The best part is, there’s already precedent.
Matt, you HAVE to see the Bebop Bounty Big Band. We’re not into Anime like, at all but we loved the show. They’re touring SE and E US right now.
I made the same comment – I saw them in San Antonio a few weeks ago. What a show!
Kill Ram, and fold it back into Dodge.
Isn’t “sacrifice” a more appropriate word here? 🙂
Oh boy, that is giving me flashbacks to a drunken fuck marry kill Italian brand hierarchy debate I had last fall. First of all, I don’t care if it’s irrational, save Lancia. I would say reabsorb Ram into Dodge and DS into Citroen. Then I would put a bullet into Maserati and graft any viable parts onto Alfa. Let Lancia be Fiat’s fancy sister, as is semi-traditional. A Jeep minivan is just an overgrown lowered crossover, which would just be strange, but I’m not entirely opposed to it. Chrysler is definitely the weirdo for survival for me.
Agree 100% with this, but I seriously fear for Lancia. The best “Plan B” is to license it to someone who will keep the brand alive, as mentioned by @Sasquatch.
Oh, and Opel would seem like an obvious target from this side of the pond, but it’s my understanding that it is a profitable brand?
I’d cut DS, Abarth, and Ram–or, rather, I’d consolidate them back into the units they came from. For good measure, I’d merge Opel and Vauxhall into one division (Opel for LHD markets, Vauxhall for RHD). And Lancia has to go.
Isn’t it what Opel/Vauxhall already is? Vauxhall has been a UK-specific badge for what is Opel to the rest of Europe (Ireland included) for quite some time. At least Stellantis made the former GM Europe profitable. They can stay like this. Vauxhall is just British for Opel.
Lancia has been a dead shell since the FCA days when they rebadged Chrysler models instead of making new Lancias. Their only current model is the Ypsilon, whose lineage actually goes back to Autobianchi.
Dodge: Fill out the brand with some Fiat models. Sell a cheap vehicle to compete with the Trax.
Chrysler: Keep the Pacifica and round out the brand with DS models.
Do some other stuff. I tried thinking of how I would run it but it takes too much brain effort.
Kill Lancia and Maserati.
The only money invested in Chrysler at this point is on their website and logo, the majority of the dealerships are CDJR at this point. The next round of EVs should go under Chrysler since it fits more of the budget luxury brand Chrysler was not long time ago. Ram can stay separate for trucks, Dodge can manage the budget SUVs and sport vehicles. Jeep is ok, they need the Renegade back and a new Compass to bring new customers to the brand.
Fiat needs to go in the US, Lancia needs to be absorbed under Alfa Romeo. Opel and Peugeot could be one brand.
If GM can manage the same platform with enough changes between Chevrolet, GMC and Buick (Cadillac even on some cases), Stellantis should be similar.
I think “syntactically” is the word you were reaching for in the first segment.
As to Stellantis subtraction, so long DS, Maserati, and Chrysler.
Jeep actually once offered a bus/van made from the the FWC model, so I’d like to see an update of that, perhaps in EV or PHEV form.
So, a Jeep ID.Buzz?
Yes, with range extender.
Maybe I’m the only one here who disagrees, but I think that further brand dilution is NOT what Jeep needs to thrive. And adding a minivan to their linueup would just dilute that brand further. It makes less sense to me, given their target audience, than the ridiculous Jeep branded strollers that were popular for a few years.
If you need a butched up minivan, make it a Ram. Offer a commercial version as well so it continues to fit the Ram Commercial idea.
But really I think fold Ram back in to Dodge, rebuild a basic lineup of Dodge is mainstream and high power, Chrysler is luxury (but will still offer the high power), Jeep is the “offroady” brand made up entirely of SUVs and CUVs.
Drop 2 of the mimic brands, though I don’t know enough about Europe to immediately tell you which two. If they can be sold off, do that. Foxconn might want in on Europe. Sell Maserati, or else make Maserati a part of Alfa, the way Maybach is now a part of MB.
Honestly, making the van a Ram is a genius idea. Make it a bit of an analogue to the GMC Acadia, but perhaps a little more van-leaning. The Acadia (and triplets) are basically minivans with rear doors.
Cut 3 Stellantis brands?
Ram-goes back to Dodge
DS-goes back to Citroen
Vauxhall/Opel/Lancia- They really don’t need to exist anymore
Jeep Minivan- Start with the STLA Large Platform as an EV, give it a cab forward design as much as possible, design it to look like a modern FC based bread box, give it a proper trail rating with optional 30″+ tires on steel-look wheels with accompanying suspension, swivel and go middle row seats, stow and go rear bench, roof rack with factory optional tent.
Definitely Make Ram Dodge Again, turn DS into, like, a trim line of Citroens, is it too late to sell Opel/Vauxhall? I hate to say get rid of Lancia and Chrysler, but, if I’m looking at it from a purely financial perspective, they’ve gotta go. And, lose either Maserati or Alfa. Jeez, why are there so many Stellantis brands?
I don’t think there is such a thing as a standalone Chrysler or Dodge dealer any more. Get rid of one or both brands. Alfa in the US sold 8900 cars in 2024, why bother? Similar with Maserati. Nobody has any valid ideas of why this conglomeration exists in the first place. If I was offered the job, I’d just run away.
I would combine Chrylser, Dodge, and Ram into Chradge and then run away.
Throw the rest of the brands all under that umbrella too and call it Giga-Chradge.
Bonus: all your EVs have built in battery branding with patented SuperChradge technology.
Are GM and Ford worse off without Oldsmobile, Pontiac and Mercury? Of course not, but you know who is? Us customers. There were once countless brands to choose from in any market category now you must choose a product from one of a handful of conglomerates, in any product category, and that:s it. Think you’re getting the same quality from the brand that made that thing you own that’s been reliable for decades? Think again, that’s now made by the same people that made the one you avoided all those years ago because their product was crappy and unreliable.
Railing against “conglomerates” doesn’t seem very applicable in the cases of Mercury, Oldsmobile, and Pontiac though.
I think he means, in Ye Olden Days before they were under those conglomerates in the first place. Correct me if I’m wrong, of course, but I thought those were once entirely independent brands before being bought by the big 3?
Even after being purchased, they operated heavily independently for many years. Massive sharing didn’t happen until the late 70s or even early 80s. Thats why you had a Chevy transmission that wouldn’t bolt to a Buick Engine for a long time.
GM acquired Olds in 1908, Oakland (Pontiac) in 1909, and Ford created (not acquired) Mercury in 1938.
I admire someone with memories of those days that can still comment here, but I doubt it applies to many of us.
Really I was was trying to draw parallels between Ford and GM dropping brands and Stellantis (a conglomerate) dropping brands while trying to make the point that when brands die it’s their customers who suffer from it. I’m also talking about all consumer industries not just cars.
But it does in terms of Stellantis and Stellantis dropping a brand isn’t unlike Ford and GM dropping brands.
Also the first sentence in my comment, the question regarding Ford and GM, was taken directly from the article.
You do make a point, was just chatting with a friend about this the other day how sadly consolidated and bland the car market has gotten with way fewer options than there were even in the ’90s.
That being said, does anyone really miss Mercury, by the time they got killed off they had almost differentiation from the Fords they were based on. I do wish GM hadn’t killed off Pontiac, even if a lot of it was marketing BS, at least one US brand that focused on offering fun to drive practical cars would be nice and they actually had some brand separation from Chevrolet. Oldsmobile had made some cool stuff and still had some faded brand equity, but was pretty past it’s prime by the aughts-that being said if it had been up to me they would’ve killed Buick instead. Though while I am pro more consumer choice it’s pretty easy to see Olds and Buick as occupying almost the same market space, not surprised GM felt they had to kill one of them.
Jeep minivan, I picture one of two possibilities.
A Pacifica with a Jeep-adjacent grille, a 1-2″ bump in ride height, and an AWD system.
Alternatively, we put sliding doors on a Wagoneer.
A Jeep minivan would basically be a Patriot blown up to the proportions of a Pacifica with sliding doors. Throw in some half-assed AWD system, put it on 28 inch all-terrain tires that drop fuel economy by 20%, and offer it in a variety of tacti-cool colors and Jeep would sell all of them.
It’d be interesting if any of the community (there has to be at least one, right?) that lives in Germany, or has been to, say, Berlin lately, would care to chime in on the vibe there these few weeks.
I’m going to Frankfurt on Friday. I’m simultaneously interested to hear some German perspectives on what’s happening and also trying to avoid touching politics whatsoever.
Exactly. I just wanna know if people are happy in general with how things turned out. Like, is it a shrug your shoulders “close enough” thing? Or, if the Germans are extra grumpy, lol.
Maybe most telling of all, Ram is always automatically Dodge in my head, and I thought “well, between Chrysler and Dodge, obviously Chrysler.” I guess what I’m saying is dealer’s choice between Ram and Chrysler. Not like adding a lone minivan under the Dodge banner really changes anything.
I think the problem has identified itself.
Admittedly as an American I may not understand the intricacies of these brands, but I’d much rather save Chrysler than any of them.
I feel the same but when I ask myself why, it’s basically due to history and brand recognition.
There isn’t a compelling case to keep a brand alive to sell a single model.
It’s possible they could turn Chrysler into a trim level or something but that doesn’t make sense and would likely be viewed with much cynicism.
I am starting to wonder if they are somewhat stuck. Everyone globally seems to want their brands sold to them. The choices Stellantis is trying to make are logical where the car-buying public is making emotional choices so their logic may come back to bite them.
I think it’s because we still call it CDJR and the Chrysler name has always been first, as if they’re anywhere close to still being the Main Brand. But yeah, why continue a brand to build literally one vehicle? I’d say keep them around if they ever plan to build cars again instead of all CUVs/trucks, but those could just as easily go to Dodge since they only have 3 models right now.
“Jeep should absorb Chrysler and Ram should absorb Dodge”??
As a person who only remembered to start using “Ram” as a standalone brand about a year ago, this is pretty humorous. Ram should go back to being Dodge’s truck brand. That seems obvious.
Dodge should also absorb Chrysler, since in the van world they’re already basically doing that now.
Jeep should be left alone, obviously.
Yeah, that line also surprised me. Ram absorbing Dodge? Cool, we’ll just crowd out the ProMasters and 1500s on the lot with the “all-new” Ram Hornet.
I also really feel like there’d be a pretty minimal public reaction to the trucks being “Dodge Ram x” again (“what do you mean, ‘again’?” – half of the public)
My argument last time was that the Wagoneer is more of a Chrysler-angled vehicle as a “luxury” thing, so they could’ve been rebadged to give Chrysler more offerings…but I guess that ship has sailed.
I am no Jeep apologist, but don’t give them a minivan. Way too much brand dilution there. It doesn’t suit them because I think the concept of being even mildly off-road capable combined with a minivan is basically impossible short of lifting existing minivans…which frankly, sounds like it should be a crime.
A minivan is honest about its off-road capabilities, which is one of many things I admire about them.
At any rate, yeah…Ram is unnecessary as a separate brand…Chrysler could’ve had a leg to stand on if they had the purported luxury-focused Wagoneers under their name, but at this point I think it should be taken behind the barn…
And then I’m not informed enough about the European brands (history, significance, government stakes in current ownership, etc.) to decide which (if any) of those should go.
But also, yeah, sorry Maserati but even among the “don’t buy a 25-year-old European luxury car” advice, you sound like an entirely different level of hell on average.
I too forget Ram is an independent brand. I don’t think anyone would notice if it went back. Just last week my boss was talking about how he had a Dodge pickup as a rental.
I feel like FCA created RAM as a separate brand after the merger because they weren’t confident Dodge would survive. This way, you could sell off RAM trucks if you needed a quick infusion of a couple billion dollars. Things were really uncertain back then!