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Ford Rival Stellantis May Axe Brands Amid Weak Demand

In recent years, Ford rival Stellantis has made significant changes across many of its brands – including in America, where Ram was spun off into its own separate brand, while Dodge has lost all of its popular yet aging muscle cars (for now, at least), and the V8 engine is essentially dead at this point, replaced by electric power and the Hurricane I-6. Now, the automaker seems poised to take even further action – perhaps even axing certain brands altogether – amid fledgling sales and disappointing profits.

“If they don’t make money, we’ll shut them down,” Stellanitis CEO Carlos Tavares told reporters after the company posted disappointing financial results in the first half of 2024, according to Reuters. “We cannot afford to have brands that do not make money. We consider that the job is done in Europe. The job is not done in the U.S. and we are now going to take care of that work.”

Currently, Stellantis has 15 brands under its corporate umbrella – Leapmotor, Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Citroen, Dodge, DS Automobiles, Fiat, Jeep, Lancia, Maserati, Opel, Peugeot, Ram, and Vauxhall. It’s unclear which of these brands might be on the chopping block, as Stellantis doesn’t release separate financial info for each – save for Maserati, which reported an adjusted operating loss in H1 of 82 million euros, or around $89 million USD.

Some analysts suggest that Stellantis could choose to sell Maserati, and may simply shutter DS and Lancia, given the fact that none of those units contribute much to the company’s sales or bottom line. Meanwhile, brands like Jeep and Ram continue to deliver big profits for the automaker, but its overall profitability still lagged behind expected levels in H1 – meaning that it plans on taking “decisive actions to address operational challenges” in North America, including scaling back production and reducing prices.

Meanwhile, Stellantis rivals Ford and General Motors didn’t exactly have a great second quarter of the year either, with both suffering big stock price declines following the release of Q2 financials last week. In fact, on Thursday, Ford stock suffered its worst single-day loss since 2008.

We’ll have more on everything Ford’s competition is up to soon, so be sure and subscribe to Ford Authority for 24/7 Ford news coverage.

Brett's lost track of all the Fords he's owned over the years and how much he's spent modifying them, but his current money pits include an S550 Mustang and 13th gen F-150.

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Comments

  1. Like several other, ahem, automakers, Carlos Tavares should be the first thing cut, for gross mismanagement. Sound familiar?

    Reply
  2. Lower the price and people may be able to afford to buy

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    1. Agreed lower the prices and fix quality control problems.

      Reply
  3. Yea, probably not gonna happen. They could certainly cut stock inventory prices but MSRPs are only gonna increase. They got greedy when just a couple years ago when there was no inventory, so they took advantage of that poor sap that had to have a car NOW. Tables have turned and now look at all that metal on their lots. This past May I bought a 2023 (new) Dodge Challenger with sticker over $35k for $23,800 and I’ve heard many deals better than that. They gonna suffer for awhile but they got to do something.

    Reply
    1. Are people still buying charges and challengers? Why?

      Reply
      1. Leftovers. Both models have been discontinued.

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      2. I had a track buddy in junior high with that name. I always considered him a pretty savy guy. Wow, was I wrong.

        Reply
  4. What has happened to the Dodge Brand as it made a full line of vehicles. Dodge made Chrysler money based on supplying Great cars such as Monaco , Coronet, Darts, and in their time Mini-Vans that people could afford . Excitement prevailed in the Dodge Showrooms ! What now brings people to the roar of a Dodge engines , where innovation made Dodge a hot car ?

    Reply
  5. Stellantis should have been never created in the first place, they have no clue on how to manage 14 brands. Tavares is worse than Failure Farley, all Chrysler brands will be extinct in 7 years unless Tavares is fired. Stellantis should put all Chrysler brands for sale.

    Reply
  6. Fist is basically dead, abarth is a sub brand of fiat so it’s dead. Alfa Romeo, basically dead in the US. Chrysler is a minivan and I think that’s it.

    They could close all those brands and.nobody would ever notice.

    Reply

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