The automaker follows Ford and GM in writing down huge sums after betting wrong.
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Stellantis swallows $26 billion costs as it rethinks its EV strategy
- Thread starter JournalBot
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...And when the Orange One leaves office and common sense prevails - A whole new set of write-downs are set to arrive.
It's like the US is climbing DOWN the evolutionary ladder.
It's like the US is climbing DOWN the evolutionary ladder.
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If only they hadn't supported the dismantling of all those assumptions and that essential infrastructure.
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Stellantis put itself in a tough position with overpriced, mediocre EVs.
I am really upset with current US politics and anti-EV sentiment. We were starting to ramp in a good direction and they put up a wall. There’s still a lot of other great EVs here and coming soon, but we’d be much further ahead without political intervention.
I am really upset with current US politics and anti-EV sentiment. We were starting to ramp in a good direction and they put up a wall. There’s still a lot of other great EVs here and coming soon, but we’d be much further ahead without political intervention.
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"We made this into a problem -- it's not our fault that it's a problem now. Totally unpredictable, really... Nobody could have seen this coming. We'll blame the government, and just write it off."
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Between the huge deficits this administration has added to the job losses and regulatory destruction, the tab to clean up the mess once this administration is gone is going to literally going to be in the trillions. All the companies that backed it are going to pay the price for years to come, and worse they'll be even further behind the rest of the global economy than they already are.
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The real story is more along the lines of: They found they can’t make them profitably, have fallen behind the Chinese, and even Renault and VW, and are hoping to instead lobby governments all over the world to keep competent competition out via tariffs for as long as possible.
It’s not going to work out for them.
It’s not going to work out for them.
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I dunno how business leaders can make any long-term plans when the political winds can shift so radically every four years. I can only see it resulting in conservative risk-taking to the point of paralysis.
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poke 532810
Ars Praetorian
People, mostly on the right, complain bitterly about subsidies and incentives for EVs, completely ignoring those given for fossil fuels. Take those away, and the gas-guzzling monstrosities pumped out by the likes of Stellantis won’t look so great.
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I hesitate to even ask in case the answer is yes, but... Do any of these write-downs or strategy changes reduce funding for IONNA?
Edit to clarify that stellantis was one of IONNA's founding partners. BMW, Hyundai, Kia, and Mercedes still seem very committed to EVs, but stellantis and GM have revised plans while Honda and Toyota barely have a toe in the waters. Is that enough support to keep IONNA going? I hope so, because they've done great work so far!
Edit to clarify that stellantis was one of IONNA's founding partners. BMW, Hyundai, Kia, and Mercedes still seem very committed to EVs, but stellantis and GM have revised plans while Honda and Toyota barely have a toe in the waters. Is that enough support to keep IONNA going? I hope so, because they've done great work so far!
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Meh. They just have to announce they're buying a rocket company, a social media company, and pivoting to AI and it'll bounce right back.
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Stellantis' whole strategy has been painful to watch. Especially their US strategy:
Chrysler: Atrophy.
Fiat: Compete with Chrysler for some reason. Even though since the 70s Chrysler spent billions trying to make Chrysler the Fiat of the US. I think that Fiat 500x rebadge would have made a much better Chrysler/Dodge Neon crossover than the Dodge Avenger. Also it just looks like a Dodge Neon. Duh.
Jeep: They've made so many $$$ mall-crawlers that they wanted to introduce their CEO to customers in a nifty commercial
Chrysler: Atrophy.
Fiat: Compete with Chrysler for some reason. Even though since the 70s Chrysler spent billions trying to make Chrysler the Fiat of the US. I think that Fiat 500x rebadge would have made a much better Chrysler/Dodge Neon crossover than the Dodge Avenger. Also it just looks like a Dodge Neon. Duh.
Jeep: They've made so many $$$ mall-crawlers that they wanted to introduce their CEO to customers in a nifty commercial
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The market for $60k+ EVs is totally and completely saturated at this point. There's a gigantic market for $20k EVs with modest range and stripped down feature sets, but none of the manufacturers were interested in serving that market. Even GM dropped the Bolt.
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In 20 years ill have to decide between a $30k chinese BEV smuggled from Canada which sends my data to the CCP or a $450k Jeep-Ford 9500 with hypertubro v20 bunkerfuel engine and ultra wide 8x8 all-tread drive, which sends my data to cyber-Thiel.
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Don't worry about it Western auto manufacturers!
I'm sure EVs will surely amount to nothing as Chinese companies waste their money and take a even bigger commanding lead in EV tech and design.
At this point in my life, I'm literally only buying EVs as dailies and I got one or two weekend gas driven sports car.
Also, I will never buy a US brand vehicle at this point. Only exception might be a used Corvette.
I'm sure EVs will surely amount to nothing as Chinese companies waste their money and take a even bigger commanding lead in EV tech and design.
At this point in my life, I'm literally only buying EVs as dailies and I got one or two weekend gas driven sports car.
Also, I will never buy a US brand vehicle at this point. Only exception might be a used Corvette.
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It is disingenuous to assert that the market and politics aren't associated. Even using a more limited definition of political as "government related", governments set policies that can either promote or lessen consumer demand. That was the entire point of the EV subsidies and charging station infrastructure rollout.
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They can't, which is why manufacturing goes into a recession every time a Republican gets into office. The manufacturing sector was in recession BEFORE Covid the last time Trump was in office. Can't blame that on the virus. And now with his tariffs he's systematically dismantling what manufacturing we had left because it was built over 50 years on the assumption of zero tariffs on goods moving between Canada, the US, and Mexico in various stages of assembly. Now it's cheaper (and more stable) to build the whole thing in Canada or Mexico and import it to the US with one tariff.
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GM brought the Bolt back, and the Equinox is selling at the same price the gas Equinox is.
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Exec 1: I have an idea, let's cancel the gas charger and come out with an ev at twice the price!
Exec 2: brilliant!
These brain dead execs are getting paid for this?
Exec 2: brilliant!
These brain dead execs are getting paid for this?
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for comparison.... it's not exactly apples to apples but...
tesla spent about $13billion in capital expenditures from company creation til 2019 and was able to build up to making and selling their current lineup profitably, plus the supercharger network. it's impossible to know how much the chinese makers have spent but they haven't been in the ev business that long so how much could it be? they're cranking out dozens of high tech models between them.
the american big three are writing down more than their competitors have spent to build viable businesses.
tesla spent about $13billion in capital expenditures from company creation til 2019 and was able to build up to making and selling their current lineup profitably, plus the supercharger network. it's impossible to know how much the chinese makers have spent but they haven't been in the ev business that long so how much could it be? they're cranking out dozens of high tech models between them.
the american big three are writing down more than their competitors have spent to build viable businesses.
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Earlier this week I saw a dealer in Florida selling tons of Equinoxes for less than $30k, in some cases much much less:
https://www.miamilakesautomall.com/new-chevrolet-vehicles/ (search for equinox)
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Basic economics is the problem here. An electric Wagoneer S from starts at $65,000. An electric F-150 started at $52,000. A Cybertruck still starts at about $70,000 even with a huge surplus. One of the bedrock principles of macroeconomics is as the price increases demand decreases.
A Xiaomi SU7 starts at $30,000. A BYD Dolphin or Han Plus starts at about $20,000. Most of the Chinese electric cars cost about half the equivalent American models.
We don’t need to do a lot of research to figure out why Americans aren’t buying electric - they are too damn expensive.
Remember when every other car seemed to be a Prius? MSRP for a base model has never been more than $30,000. You could get a 2015 Prius in 2015 for $23,000 - 1/3 of the cost of a 2025 Cybertruck. No wonder they sold like vape pens, the Prius was a good value at a good price. The Electric Wagoneer, eF-150 and Cybertruck sell like expensive cigars because they offer a similar high cost, low value product.
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Uh..... are you really saying that in the current political environment where money literally buys you access to the president and get you pardoned of crimes?
Where lobbying can get the government to cancel multi million dollar/billion strategic country wide pivots?
Politics and Business has ALWAYS been intertwined, ESPECIALLY so now.
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Yup. Most of the Equinox EVs in that link are selling just below $28k. My wife and I paid $32k for a '24 gas Equinox last year. Charging networks are pretty sparse in Indiana yet.
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Filosa is half right. They did overestimate the pace of transtion - just like everyone else in the car business.
But the wildcard in the whole EV market is/was Donald Trump and has acolytes. When Filosa was planning his EV strategy 4-5 years ago, he didn't (no one did) anticipate the anthipathy of the right wing towards EVs. Even the oil companies - kicking and screamaing - began to deal with an EV future.
I'm not sure that strategic planning in 2022 could have predicted this.
That said, EV success was never a slam-dunk - but it wasn't doomed, either.
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I mean, they’ve launched three or four EVs recently. There were another two or three in the can. They have a platform that supports EVs of various sizes. Indicates they had a strategy to me.
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Wow, those are some legitimately great prices. I haven't seen anything like that here in the DMV region. One of the EV LT's was priced at 18k!
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