AUTONEWS

Stellantis profits plummet and Carlos Tavares receives 2 million euros in compensation 

Portuguese manager Carlos Tavares was the magician who, after proving his worth as Carlos Ghosn's number 2, rising from test engineer to vice president of the Renault group, after graduating in France, left the French Renault to lead the French group PSA in 2014. In 2021 he started with Stellantis, resulting from the merger of the French from PSA with the Italian-Americans from FCA, but after 4 years the magic wore off and the less good results advised his departure, which was far from being bad news for the Portuguese.

It is now known that, in order to be dismissed in the middle of his contract with Stellantis, Carlos Tavares ended up going home with a nice millionaire sum. This while Stellantis was recording its worst results ever. According to Reuters, Tavares received 2 million euros in compensation, to which he added 10 million euros due to his previous performance, during which the company exceeded a series of pre-determined objectives that justified the bonus given to the Portuguese CEO.

Once the salary and other benefits are added, in total Tavares, who resigned from Stellantios on December 1, 2024, took home 23 million euros, a very interesting amount and one of the highest paid in the automotive industry, with unions drawing attention to the fact that the group's other employees receive on average only 66,000 euros. However, these unionists forget to remember that employees do not lose their jobs if the company does not achieve its goals, unlike what happens with the CEO who, even so, took home 37% less in 2024 than in 2023. 

But what is most surprising about the hefty payment to Tavares is the fact that it occurred at a time when Stellantis is going through a bad time, which was precisely what motivated the CEO's departure. In 2024, the company's profits fell by 70%, to just 5.5 billion euros, which was mainly due to a 15% reduction in sales in the North American market. And in the US, most of Stellantis's local brands were losing money, leaving the dealer network on the brink of a nervous breakdown, especially as they had been complaining for months that they were drowning in inventory of new vehicles they couldn't get rid of.

Mercedes announces workforce cuts in China

The company confirmed the reduction in its workforce in China in order to increase efficiency through the use of new technologies. The brand's turnover fell by 8.5%

Mercedes-Benz began a series of layoffs this Friday that could affect up to 15% of the German car manufacturer's workers in China, in the face of falling sales, caused in part by the rise of local competitors.

Quoted by the local press, a company spokesperson confirmed the reduction in the workforce in China, as it seeks ways to increase the efficiency of operations through the use of new technologies.

The specialist portal AutoPix reported that the main departments affected would be sales, financing and components.

In 2024, Mercedes-Benz's turnover in China fell by 8.5% year-on-year, due to a 7.3% reduction in passenger car sales and a 19.7% reduction in van sales.

China is the German brand's largest market, with more passenger vehicle sales than Europe as a whole, so these figures weighed on the results for the year, which recorded an overall drop of 4.5% in revenue and 3% and 9.4% in sales of passenger vehicles and commercial vans, respectively. Despite the decline in China, which the company itself attributes to “high competition”, the Chinese financial news portal Yicai highlighted that Mercedes-Benz managed to maintain its position as the largest seller of luxury cars in the Asian country in 2024. 

In September, the company announced an investment equivalent to around 1.78 billion euros to increase the range of vehicles it produces in China, advancing “a new chapter” from 2025 with the production of electric models, a segment in which local companies, such as BYD, are ahead of foreign ones.

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