Struggling Stellantis Picks Insider to Steer Turnaround Effort

Stellantis has brought new meaning to car trouble, and now it’s hoping a shakeup at the top will help it steer clear of a fiscal dead end.

The multinational automaking giant — one of Detroit’s Big Three by virtue of its Chrysler ownership — announced Wednesday that Americas COO Antonio Filosa will soon sit in the driver’s seat as its chief executive officer. He’ll be called upon to maneuver out of a veritable traffic jam of issues, including his predecessor’s strategic blunders, the looming tariff war, and a challenging global auto market.

Getting Back on Track

When France’s Groupe PSA and American-Italian Fiat Chrysler merged to form Stellantis in 2021, it brought Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Fiat, Maserati, Alfa Romeo, and more under one roof. The new automaking behemoth promised billions in savings through synergies and collaboration on emerging technologies, such as electric vehicles.

And, for a minute, it delivered. Under its first CEO, Carlos Tavares, the new group achieved a record $20 billion in net profit in 2023, an 11% year-over-year increase, and a record $203 billion in net revenue. And then, faster than a Maserati MC20, his strategy went south. Under Tavares, Stellantis hiked prices during the pandemic like most automakers — roughly 50% from 2019 to 2024 in its case, compared with 23% inflation. But then, unlike others, it refused to lower them. Customers balked at Jeeps that cost over $100,000, and inventory piled up, which forced Stellantis to sell off 100,000 units at a heavy discount to clear the backlog. There were other bad signs, namely layoffs and idled plants, and Stellantis’ US dealers grew furious: Their council blasted the company’s “reckless short-term decision-making” in an open letter last September. Other critics (car-beraters?) piled up, including the United Auto Workers, who threatened to strike.

Tavares abruptly resigned in December after several quarters marked by flailing performance. All told, Stellantis reported a 70% drop in net profits in 2024 to $5.7 billion. At the same time, its US sales plummeted 15%, and its US market share, which had declined roughly 3 percentage points over three years to 8%, fell into fifth place behind Honda. The first quarter of this year brought a 14% year-over-year revenue slide and North American shipments falling 20%. Enter Filosa, who will have to tackle all this and a geopolitical headache:

• Earlier this year, Stellantis pledged to invest more than $5 billion in the US, including the reopening of an Illinois plant, in an effort to court President Trump. But its international footprint, which includes facilities in Mexico and Canada in addition to Europe, means it is among the automakers most exposed to a trade war.
• Morgan Stanley analysts said earlier this year that Stellantis and Porsche had the highest US exposures, with about 25% of their unit sales potentially impacted, while Fitch estimates that close to 40% of the company’s US sales involve vehicles manufactured abroad.

Order Up: While Stellantis is undoubtedly facing pressure from tariffs on car imports, which Trump set at 25%, potentially good news arrived Wednesday. A federal court blocked the president’s plan to impose “reciprocal” tariffs on dozens of countries, which could have led to even higher duties. Trump, for example, recently threatened a 50% tariff for the EU, where much of Stellantis’ operations are based. The ruling does not, however, impact Trump’s auto tariffs, levied using a national security exemption. Moreover, Goldman Sachs chief US political economist Alec Phillips wrote, following the ruling, that the bank expects the administration “will find other ways to impose tariffs” such as broadening sectoral tariffs under Section 232 or launching Section 301 investigations on US trading partners, paving the way for tariffs to follow.