A little more than five years ago, a star was born. FCA and PSA announced their merger under the name of Stellantis. The result was a gigantic conglomerate. In these five years Stellantis has never managed to position itself as an alternative to Volkswagen or Toyota by sales volume but its structure is enormous, with 14 brands in its portfolio.
The first steps were hopeful. The company marked record yearswith profit margins that They were the envy of the sector and a strategic plan that embraced the electric car. A decision that even before the merger of both automotive groups seemed like the right path.
Carlos Tavares led a reconversion based on the reuse of platforms for their generalist brands and deep electrification. So much so that they pointed to a date: In 2030 they would only sell electric cars in Europe and half of sales in the United States would also be electric cars. The strategy was in line with the plans of the European Union.
But manufacturers have not offered products that live up to what the customer expected in terms of price and/or autonomy. European regulators, after much pressure from automakers (from which Tavares distanced himself on several occasions), have ended up making the rules a little more flexible. The ban on selling combustion engines is maintained in 2035 unless they are met some very strict exceptions. Yes indeed, the path to get there has been made slightly more flexible.
All of this has had a direct consequence on a company that focused on finances and regulations, forgetting about customers, that regulators had room to change their minds and about their own history. Yestellantis tried to sneak in the electric Fiat 500 with a shoehorn in the United States. Eliminated mythical V8 engines of Dodge or RAM in that same country to comply with emissions. He threw 3,000 million euros into the trash with the development of electric cars for Maserati that will never see the light of day.
And now, with Europe accepting the electric car at a more contained speed than expected, Stellantis assumes a amortization of 22,000 million euros in its accounts and the cancellation of new factory openings in Germany and Italy.
The last chapter
Of a story that has no end. At the moment it is the last chapter written but it will by no means be the last one that we have news of. And Stellantis and the electric car continue to leave enormous rivers of ink in their wake.
Last Friday, February 6, Stellantis shares fell up to 27% in a fateful day for the company. The movement in the stock market was the immediate consequence of show some not very optimistic numbers. When presenting results, the company confirmed that an adjustment of 22,000 million euros was going to appear in its accounts.
Those 22,000 million euros have a culprit: electric car.
And it is that the company confirmed that in 2025 they would present losses in their income statements, assuming an impact on them of around 22,000 million euros. Actually, of those 22,000 million euros, 6,500 million are hard cash. Cash. Real money, to put it simply. These are the 6.5 billion euros that the company will have to pay in the next four years to those affected who will suffer the cancellation of their plans or the readjustment in the production of electric cars.
The rest of the money corresponds to the forecasts that Stellantis expected for the future. That is, sales that will not be consolidated because, simply, these new models will not be manufactured or their production will be reduced. These types of announcements have a direct impact, again, on the stock market because the company not only sends the message that its profits will be slimmer in the future, it also confirms that its real value is lower.
“The charges announced today reflect the cost of overestimate the pace of the energy transition that distanced us from the real-world needs, means and desires of many car buyers,” said Stellantis CEO Antonio Filosa in words reported by Financial Times.
Among the cancellations, Stellantis confirmed that it was canceling the construction of two new gigafactories in Europe, specifically those in Termoli (Italy) and Kaiserslautern (Germany). For the first of them, Stellantis planned a conversion to produce electric cars while building a gigafactory next to it. Now, this second option has already been ruled out and it remains to be seen what the future is of a factory that has been producing engines for Fiat for more than half a century. One of the options that Stellantis had chosen was to once again produce Fiat 500 hybrids and thus keep this engine plant alive.
Both this factory and the second canceled plant, the German one, not only impact Stellantis. The company had a 45% stake in ACC, a joint venture made up of TotalEnergies (30%) and Mercedes (25%), which was going to be in charge of building three gigafactories in Europe. For this they had raised 4,000 million euros in capital but the Italian and German project have been paralyzed since 2024. Now, ACC has confirmed its cancellation and that the French plant will begin with a production equivalent to 13 GWh, very far from the maximum of 40 GWh for which it is designed.
That is to say, Stellantis planned to embrace the electric car that was not being produced. To do this, it intended to build up to four gigafactories in Europe (Spain, France, Germany and Italy). Of them, only the Spanish and French are still running.
Photo | Stellantis
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