STELLANTIS

CEO of automotive conglomerate doubts electrics

Stellantis is the 4th largest automobile group in the world and the 2nd in Europe, being led by the Portuguese Carlos Tavares (image on the side)

A manager who does not cease to amaze. In a week, it announces investments in chips, batteries and platforms, even aiming to replace, over time, the group's current electric vehicles, mounted on adapted combustion engine chassis, with others specifically designed to work 100% electrically, to optimize efficiency. The following week, the same manager complains that he is being forced to make electric cars, but that he does not know how he will make money from selling them.

Carlos Tavares' doubts were made public by Reuters when they were uttered at a conference organized by the news agency. The CEO of Stellantis stated that “electrification increases production costs by 50%” – undoubtedly referring to new platforms, factories adapted to new architectures and production of batteries –, then admitting that “it is not possible to pass 50 % increase in costs for the buyer”.

As we've known Carlos Tavares from the time he was a product manager at Renault, where he was already respected as extremely competent, a reputation he reinforced when he ran PSA and now Stellantis, none of this will be gratuitous or mouth-to-mouth outside. As he will hardly be attacking his own strategy as a manufacturer, the most likely is that these statements by Carlos Tavares aim to put pressure on the French Government, trying to gather support and, on the way, strengthen the lobby of European builders with the European Union.

But at a time when many customers are still questioning the feasibility of purchasing an electric car, due to the time needed to recharge them and the existence of charging stations to carry out the operation, the doubts raised by the CEO do nothing to reassure investors , in this case the customer.

Tavares also predicts that “productivity will drop 10% per year over the next five years, in an industry that only manages productivity increases of 2% to 3% annually”. Regardless of whether all European countries are rooting for Stellantis' success, like any other group with a presence in the Old Continent, in terms of factories, employees, investments and profits, the reality is that if the investment had been made sooner and in a better way. more gradual, the effort would be substantially less. Tavares speaks of an investment of 30 billion euros by 2025 to attack electric mobility head-on and not with multi-energy solutions, which reduce investment, but are a commitment with no future. It remains to be seen if there is still time.

Autonews