Stellantis in serious trouble

[PuntoHowTo]

noted in a news report from a couple of days ago. Stellantis is shutting down Dodge Jeep, Ram and Chrysler, and laying off 2,400 jobs as a result. Not to mention the jobs lost in the private/dealerships as a result.

and they have unsold inventory of over 1.4 million cars

So much for giving every company 10 years and the budget to show their worth to the parent company. This is a move of Epic proportions and proves that no brand is safe.

 

[AnthonyH]

An interesting news item.

The big picture;

The rise of electric vehicles and the end of the combustion engine, sooner or later.

And the rise of China as the biggest producer and exporter of vehicles in the world, sooner or later.

I don't think any of these Stellantis brands will disappear fully. They'll keep shrinking and end up a small niche product. Much like MG cars...

 

[PuntoHowTo]

Yeah it seems that people are not buying cars with big engines but they have failed to adapt to people's needs..... which shares a lot in common with Fiat and their inability to see the market changing and renew or introduce new models to better fit the changing market. Even now they are selling the 500 first launched in 2007 and the Panda based on a platform with a facelift from 2003, and both of those based on technology and components first designed in the 90s.

Fiat notoriously did nothing to replace the long running fire engine till basically the EU held an emissions compliance gun to their head.

In some respects I think Covid was a bit of a blessing for Fiat as they had component supply issues and so had to stop production of Pandas and 500's, they made very few of anything else in Europe so I think they avoided the massive excess of unsold cars they are having in north America, but they lost a vast amount of sales anyway.

Dodge is obviously a big deal as is Jeep and Chrysler in the USA so saying they are going to bin these companies completely which is what is implied is a massive deal. It is not impossible for these companies to completely disappear, just look at General Motors. Maybe they will sell the brands off?

One thing that they could have done with Jeep is made a car to take the place of the Landrover defender. just as Ineos have done. They make and sells Jeeps in the US for $30-40k, so they could make a reasonably priced and capable basic mechanial off roader without filling it with unwanted bells and whistles.

I suppose we'll just want and see what happens.

 

[g8rpi]

Hardly a reliable news source. Even Andy has more subscribers. Dodge and Jeep are not going out of business.
Why promote this clickbait FUD?

 

[vexorg]

Dodge Jeep, Ram and Chrysler, are not big in europe, might just be a tidy up like they done with opel

 

[PuntoHowTo]

Hardly a reliable news source. Even Andy has more subscribers. Dodge and Jeep are not going out of business.
Why promote this clickbait FUD?

Yeah I know, but I have come to realise people don't read any more and for a lot of people it is only "evidence" worth reviewing if it comes in video form. If you have concerns about the validity of a piece of information you can always look it up and see if what is being said is true or not....

In this case if you look around a lot of what they are saying in the video is true, they are laying off 2.5k people, they are massively scaling back production on many models across these brands. Later in the video they all but admit that they are not "closing down" these companies but they are in significant trouble with the current situation.

1.4 million unsold cars is insane and I dread to think what the value of that unsold inventory is? potentially in the billions which is money that cannot be reinvested in new cars, new facilities, dealership network or customer service so the whole group is struggling in north America as a result. even the biggest companies are going to struggle when they have cash flow problems to the tune of billions of dollars.

Dodge Jeep, Ram and Chrysler, are not big in europe, might just be a tidy up like they done with opel

It does seem very much like an "American problem" and for the most part it probably is, but one thing to consider is that these are the north American arms of Stellantis, they don't sell fiats or Peugeots over there, and so to stay in the list of top companies they need to sell cars to all these markets.
in a list of biggest manufacturers in the world. Stellantis do keep slipping down, even if they keep reporting all their successes.
I think they withdrew all the GM branded cars from north America when PSA took over Vauxhall so GM no longer sells those cars and they lost that portion of the north American market. These few companies are the only hold that Stellantis still has in north America and if they cannot turn this around it would have a massive impact on their position globally.