Is it “good to be the king” as Mel Brooks insists? Or, in fact, is Shakespeare’s King Henry correct when he complains “heavy is the head that wears the crown?” If you’re Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares you might be more inclined to believe the latter.
Succession drama always makes me think of Shakespeare, so I’m going to make this a Bard-inspired folio of The Morning Dump today. “Something is rotten in the state of… Holland” (which is close enough to Denmark) and the board of Stellantis is already looking to replace poor Carlos. Alas, poor Carlos, I knew him well. A man of infinite jest, at least for news roundup writers.
Can you blame them? The castle grounds are being stormed from inside and it’s UAW’s Shawn Fain leading the charge. Does this make Fain the MacDuff? Or as a commoner is he more a Dogberry, spouting off what seems like nonsense but is actually sense? I guess it depends on whom you ask.
Stellantis has a plan! Though, as Hamlet observed, every plan digs its own grave upon birth. This one involves cutting inventory, instead of heads. And, finally, Stellantis has a friend in China’s Leapomotor because what Stellantis needs now is another brand. Will it offer the loyal service of Tranio or the questionable friendship of Proteus?
Sober up, my groundlings, it’s time for Much Ado About Stellantis.
Carlos The Boss Is Quite Possibly Toast
“With all my heart I’ll gossip at this feast.” – Comedy of Errors
Am I going to regret trying to make this whole thing Shakespearean? Friend, I already do. But the fools are always my favorite Shakespearean characters and, on my better days, I think I’d make a decent Falstaff.
Carlos Tavares, pictured above, may not make the last syllable of recorded time. Here it is from Bloomberg who first reported it:
Stellantis NV Chairman John Elkann has started a search for a successor to Chief Executive Officer Carlos Tavares, whose contract runs out in early 2026.
The automaker confirmed the decision and said it’s part of regular succession planning after questions from Bloomberg News. Pressure on the CEO is rising due to Stellantis’ poor performance in markets including the US, its biggest single profit pool.
Elkann has no plans for an immediate leadership change and Tavares will be included in the search process, according to people familiar with the matter. Still, the chairman is increasingly dissatisfied with the situation in North America, where sales have been slowing and several executives left the company, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing internal matters. Elkann is also CEO of Exor NV, the largest shareholder in Stellantis.
I’ve been a little hard on Tavares myself, pointing out his high pay, his ability to turn allies against his own company, and the absence of an obvious plan for the future. To his credit, Tavares has called his perception of the company’s prospects in North America “arrogant” and has pointed out a lot of issues with Stellantis has to face.
Tavares isn’t young, but he isn’t old, and it wouldn’t be out of the question for him to serve another five-year term after this one is up. If you’d have asked me a couple of years ago, while the company was raking in profits, if that was the most likely outcome I’d have probably said yes. Not anymore.
Is this all sound and fury, signifying nothing? I’ll refer you to this Associated Press article on the topic:
Erik Gordon, a University of Michigan business and law professor, said the company’s confirmation of the search likely means that the board has reached a deal for Tavares to leave.
“I think they recognize that it’s best for the company to have a new CEO,” said Gordon, who has advised corporations on leadership succession plans. “Stellantis is taking a lot of hits within the U.S.”
Companies, he said, try to change leaders in a peaceful and organized way. “They don’t want it to look like chaos, they don’t want it to look like panic. They want it to look like this is the normal, responsible way we do things.”
All’s well that ends well, I suppose.
Stellantis Blames The Man They Call Shawn Fain
“Come, let them be opinioned.” – Much Ado About Nothing
After decades of UAW presidents who were uncomfortably cozy with leadership, Stellantis is suddenly facing a foe who literally drinks from a mug of boss’s tears. To call Shawn Fain antagonistic is a dramatic understatement worthy of that guy from Stratford-upon-Avon. You’d be better off sending your ladyfriend to Vegas with that fella named Iago than to turn your back on Fain.
The latest kerfuffle is over the commitments Stellantis made to the UAW in its latest contract (called Letter 311). Fain has indicated his belief that the automaker is trying to weasel out of its deal, leading Stellantis to send out a press release castigating the UAW leader:
Stellantis stands by its position that it has honored its commitments under the 2023 collective bargaining agreement. Here are the facts:
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The language in Letter 311 is clear. It states that the investments and allocations set forth in Letter 311 ‘are subject to approval by the Stellantis product Allocation Committee and contingent upon plant performance, changes in market conditions, and customer demand continuing to generate sustainable and profitable volumes’ for the relevant facility. The investments and timelines are not absolute guarantees, as Fain has wrongly and repeatedly characterized, but contingent upon numerous factors, including market conditions.
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There is indisputable volatility in the market, especially as the industry transitions to an electrified future. Many automakers are revising their plans. Over the last year, there have been numerous announcements of investment and product delays as well as outright product cancelations across the industry, leading one respected automotive consulting company to revise its ‘24 EV sales projections down 25% (note: 9% from 12%). The evidence of a dramatic transformation of the industry and its effects on the market is clear.
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The decision to delay the timeline for the Belvidere plant allocations is consistent with the current challenging automotive landscape and the plain language of Letter 311.
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Contrary to Fain’s narrative, the Company has not made an announcement regarding the production allocation of the next generation Dodge Durango.
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Stellantis has announced investments of $6.2 billion in Kokomo, in 2022 and 2023, respectively. With those investments plus the recently announced +$400 million in Michigan, we have actually announced about 30% of the nearly $19 billion that is included in the 2023 agreement, not just 2% as Fain claims.
I gotta say “has not made an announcement” is not the same as “we aren’t doing it.” I think the PR department doth protest too much.
Stellantis Says it Will Get Itself ‘Clean’
“Out, damned spot! out, I say!” – Macbeth
Stellantis has the highest inventory of any major brand, leading its dealers to declare the company’s current situation a “disaster.” What’s the solution?
From the Detroit Free Press we have this plan:
[O]n Monday, Chief Financial Officer Natalie Knight said the company will cut inventories by 100,000 vehicles by the beginning of 2025.
“I just want to make really clear that from my point of view, if we have to make a trade-off, getting ourself clean for ‘25 is definitely going to be our top priority,” she said during a conference call with Bank of America analysts for the 2024 European Autos and Future Car Virtual Conference.
In the short term, presumably, that means more incentives. In the medium term that’s… less production?
Is Leapmotor The Stellantis Savior?
“He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,” – Henry V
If there’s a Stellantis product I’m most excited about, it’s probably the Ramcharger. But give me two choices and I’ll definitely have the Leapmotor T03 in there. Leapmotor is now the 15th brand for Stellantis as the company has taken a 51% share in the Chinese-based joint venture.
While it’s nothing special to look at or, probably, drive, it is a very cheap electric car (about $21,000 before incentives) and offers a decent city range of over 240 miles (WLTP urban cycle). According to Reuters, the initial run will be built in China, but production will soon begin in the Stellantis plant in Tychy, Poland, where it should avoid tariffs.
And what of the other cars from Leapmotor like the C10? From Reuters:
Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares has hinted the C10 model could be manufactured in Europe, but has not provided details.
Leapmotor, which will serve as Stellantis’ 15th brand, will help the world’s fourth-largest automaker widen its range of affordable EVs, as it presses ahead with electrification and seeks to comply with EU emission rules at a time of soft global demand for EVs
Carlos Tavares has said the industry is in a race for survival and this partnership could be one way Stellantis makes it to the other side, even if it gets there without him.
The Morning Dump Musical Choice Today
Why yes, I did pick Radiohead’s “Talk Show Host” for today’s TMD musical accompaniment. For no reason at all…
The Question I Ask At TMD’s End
Who is your pick for the next CEO of Stellantis?
Lead photo: Office Space
How about building an affordable and reliable vehicle people would want to drive? And make it look nicer than some angry-looking kitchen appliance!
A vehicle that also doesn’t rust out w/in 10 years
If they don’t rust out, nobody will need to buy a new one. /s
That could be acceptable IF stallantis products in the US market were consistently the cheapest price. That’s not true any more by a long shot.
When the competition makes more reliable and better rust proofed cars why would anyone buy the formerly “cheap” stallantis products? Stallantis seems to be trying to move upmarket at least by their targeted vehicle prices and seemingly it is Not working as demonstrated by the highest average days on market vehicles (at least in the US market).
You guessed it: Frank Stallone.
As a career PR guy I would wager the “we have not made an announcement” language is more legal’s fault. There’s always a legal department pouring over things, making sure you can’t say anything that will commit you to spending money or influence some of of litigation.
It would never happen but (getting ready for a comment storm) wouldn’t it be interesting to see Shawn Fain have to run the ship? Not weighing in good or bad, but that would be fun to watch.
I’m wondering if they’ll need a full restructuring of brands/board/ceo/president, all that. They’re fairly well into brandscape territory that had GM cutting 4 brands for the government to bail them out in 2008. If these trends continue I could see them needing a bail out, Jeep can’t keep them afloat forever, as evidenced by the Wagoneer.
CEO replacement, will be some european, around 50-70 years old. Problem is, that hasn’t worked in the past. If North America is their largest market, they need someone that knows the market.
Too bad Bob Lutz is 92. The CEO that never was
Is it too late to reanimate Lee Iacocca? Maybe David can do an article on getting him working again after sitting for 5 years?
We proudly announce that Stellantis will be the first company to utilize machine learning for our executive leadership. Introducing Lee AI-acocca!
Simmons, promote that man!
Lee revived Chrysler, so they would just be returning the favor.
Danny Bonaduce is always the correct answer.
Oh, you wanted a serious answer?
Me. I’ll take the job for 5 years. Hard to imagine I would do WORSE than Tavares has in the last 2. I’m pretty sure I could at least develop a basic product plan for Chrysler Jeep Dodge that makes more sense than what they have currently.
Joe Isuzu could possibly replace Carlos.
At least he had sleazy likeability. Tavares just has sleazy, or to be a little more accurate, shit-slinging.
Setting my own desire for the golden parachute aside, I do think there is a certain former SNL cast member that would be great for the role. You could use your existing stock of Carlos Tavares photos for him and we’d never notice the difference.
(Alternatively, I’d also accept any number of other SNL alum instead of Lovitz, but still use his photo. “Cecily Strong, pictured above” would make me chuckle paired with photos of Lovitz.)
Yeah, that’s the ticket!
Rather suspicious timing John, announcing this less than a week after the headlines about your $84M tax evasion charges. I’m sure these are unrelated.
That doesn’t sound like he was the one evading taxes, just that he was the beneficiary of his (supposed) Grandmother’s residency fraud & tax evasion.
All I know is, regardless of what happens to him, “Carlos Tavares, pictured above” is now permanently etched into my brain.
And he will never not look like that. I get confused when I see actual pictures of him now and it legitimately takes me a second before I realize why I don’t recognize the man.
*Pulls out black candles, salt, a snake, and an ancient looking book, possibly bound in human skin.* Alright, time for a spot of necromancy to get my boy Marchionne back…
Alas poor Marchionne, we knew him well.
Whoever made the decision to put a V8 in everything, bring them back
I think this is why Stellantis is in the position they are now. They put all their eggs in the V8 basket because that was extremely profitable in the short term, but now they have no idea what to do next. I mean, their idea of a money-printing crossover (which they just sort of realized they needed) is an ugly-fied, rebadged Alfa Romeo. They’re toast.
I don’t know if ditching the V8 is the wrong answer long-term, but to basically have no product while you wait to roll out the $70k EV you expect to replace them is not the way either.
3-4 years ago they should have introduced the EV Charger/Challenger alongside the V8s. Get a replacement for the Durango that is maybe a hybrid with good performance. Yes, Dodge can offer something that isn’t drinking fuel from a fire hose. Something like the Hornet is probably the right idea, but price it to compete with the RAV4/CR-V (and be a better vehicle apparently). Then you eliminate the old HEMI when you have the gas powered Charger/Challenger ready.
All they’ve done here is create a mess. And it is bad management, pure and simple. Tavares is at the wheel.
Yes, the issue is that they had no lineup whatsoever outside the V8 novelty cars. Ford also builds a V8 RWD coupe but they also have an actual lineup.
As long as you are in the market for a truck or SUV, that is.
2008 dodge had an actual lineup, if only they had kept any of it
What sucks is they had a hybrid version of the aspen/durango sometime around 2010, the ram etorque has been around since 2019 and saw major improvement but they only used it a little bit, dodge and chrysler literally had concept electric cars and systems that they never used, such a waste!
I’ll take the Stellantis CEO slot. I mean, how hard can it be? Also, what’s the worst that could happen?
Golden parachute for the win!
Well, you could need to smuggle yourself out of house arrest in a piano box to a non-extradition country.
That’s only if he proposes another merger that would further reduce Italian influence in the company
What’s Ghosn up to these days? Maybe he could be in use of a job.
The two Carlos’s are great friends too apparently!
You could become an Autopian meme!
Just need to get in there long enough for the golden parachute to hit.
V10emous, David Tracy, and Adrian should form a CEO voltron and take over
Big mistake having only one Midwesterner in the triumvirate.
While they’re off enjoying the beach in LA and whatever there is to do in England, I’ll be consolidating power behind the scenes in Detroit.
I thought they went to pub and drank pints in England or maybe visit a curry house.
If your primary goal as CEO is “V10 all the things”, as I assume it is, then I could care less about what the other 2 get up to for the most part. Let Adrian design stuff and complain, let David live in your cars, etc.
That would be the headline of the plan for sure, but I have some other ideas too.
-Spin off all European brands, I don’t need the headache coming there. Use whatever cash you can get for them to develop the ideas below:
-Develop Chrysler into an EV brand. The Charger is already ready so you basically need to start with that. Make a world-class luxury sedan for ~$80-100K and call it the Chrysler Imperial. Old-school, not tech-forward. Real leather, wood, and metal furnishings. The anti Tesla and Lucid EV. Even if you lose a bit of money on them at first, you need to keep Chrysler going and build them into a world-class brand or this whole thing is doomed. The second product is an EV minivan, the third is a mid-size CUV, both with the same old-school ethos.
-Crash develop small CUVs for Jeep and license Honda or Toyota hybrid tech to do so. Offer 12 year 150,000 mile warranties to differentiate yourself. Acknowledge your bad quality reputation and tackle it head on.
-Return the V8 to Dodge. Own your reputation as the anti-EV brand. We don’t want a single person to cross-shop Chrysler and Dodge. Offer a V8 in an SUV smaller than Durango. Advertise prominently that you are paying fines to the EPA; this will cause shrieks of dismay from the press, which will raise sales in the target market even more.
-Stick it out with the Wagoneer, but bring the V8 back as an option. Develop a hybrid system instead of the undersized Hurricane. Offer an HD version of the SUV, including the Cummins engine.
-Ram and the traditional Jeep products are OK for the moment, but build me a one-off 2 door 392 Wrangler for my company car.
Hired.
FYI Wrangler 392s are actually depreciating pretty normally. You’ll be able to pick one up in the 50s soon enough and at that price they’re a great buy. I’ve got my eye on a 300C, which also isn’t looking like the collective the New Balance crowd thought it would be when they bought them all and mothballed them.
Still a decent number of *new* 300Cs out there.
Yes, but it seems like those dealers remain delusional. They “know what they got”.
There’s a new one near me that’s $4,000 off MSRP.
Reboot the Neon to bring in the yutes, and fold Ram back into Dodge, and we have a deal.
This is such a common complaint here that I admit I don’t understand at all.
-Should Genesis be folded back into Hyundai? Remember the Genesis sedan (now G80) and Equus (now G90)?
Ram is a completely separate line of products that has no overlap with any other Dodge model. Why should money be spent to combine two brands?
Partially nostalgia, and to bring Dodge back to being at least what appears to be a full-line automaker? Stellantis having 12 brands with 1-3 products each is bizarre.
Also, I feel like RAM, with it’s Beef Boy trucks, seems to fit the ethos of the Dodge brand well enough that I don’t see the value in them being separated.
Genesis is an attempt at a real luxury brand that needs to be separate from the dozen of models Hyundai has, with, and this needs to be stressed, entirely separate dealer spaces. Will Hyundai actually do this? I don’t know. But at least Genesis makes sense if they do.
Arguably you could do the Chevy/GMC split here by simply adding a Dodge badge to the front of the RAM.
Separated solely by trim levels of the same vehicle and slightly different styling. Surprising how many people I know have a strong preference for one over the other – despite being more-or-less-the-same.
Lol, someone’s seen the gooftastic Romeo + Juliet from the 90’s. My wife loves that movie.
It certainly was a piece of Art, that’s for sure. Here’s a neat bit about the soundtrack in all of its 1996ery.
Out of all the Shakespeare interpretations out there it is certainly one of them
Hey hey hey. As someone who was a very angsty 12-year-old girl when the film came out (and apparently only one in her small town listening to Nirvana, Garbage, Radiohead, etc.), I object to that movie/soundtrack being referred to as anything less flattering than “a complete revelation.” 🙂
Hey, I’m all about the soundtrack, no shade towards that at all. But if you haven’t watched the movie itself it in a decade or two, put it on. It… doesn’t hold up super well, lol.
Bring me my longsword, ho!
David Tracy, 100%. A good measure of pragmatism is what’s needed.
At least we wouldn’t have to worry about Stellantis not having enough models to sell.
Surely Stellantis can just look in the nearest music box for a new CEO.
It should be Ralph Gilles if he wants it (don’t blame him if he doesn’t).
It’s dangerous to have designers/car guys at the helm of car companies (see Fisker, etc.). That being said, if anyone can do it, he probably could pull it off (he was the head of SRT at one point, so maybe…)
He was president of Dodge also.
I’m not sure Fisker is a valid comp.
This is probably not a bad idea. And, given these CEO’s last about 5 years there, he could be a good transition to the next generation. But, I know nothing. I agree to vote for you, as suggested above.
Alfa Romeo, Alfa Romeo! Wherefore art thou, Alfa Romeo?
I think we all know what happens to Alfa Romeo.
For the next CEO of Stellantis I draft
MergioLuca di Montezemolo to find a replacement.“I have a concept of a plan.” – Carlos Tavares, probably.
Hey, that’s plagiarizing the former reality show guy.
It’s amazing how well Shakespeare can be applied to Stellantis lol.
For those of of us not reliant on Stellantis for employment or transportation, it is certainly a Comedy of Errors. For those who are reliant on Stellantis, “How bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes!”