Over the past few months, demand for all-electric vehicles has trailed expected levels of growth following a red hot period of several years, even as sales continue to grow. Regardless, this has prompted many automakers to scale back production to meet demand, and that includes the Ford F-150 Lightning. In fact, Ford recently announced that it’s idling production of its EV pickup at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center for several weeks for that very reason, and now, one of its planned competitors from Ram is being delayed until next year, too.
According to CNBC, Stellantis is delaying the launch of the all-electric Ram 1500 REV from Q4 2024 to the first half of 2025. The Ram 1500 Ramcharger – an extended range EV version of the pickup – was slated to launch after the REV in Q1 2025, but as of right now, it’s unclear if it has been delayed as well. As for the reasoning behind this decision, Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares stated that the automaker wants to work on getting the all-electric Dodge Charger Daytona and Jeep Wagoneer S to market before shifting its focus to trucks.
“We are just facing a very significant amount of workload, and we want to be very prudent in the way we validate the products, so we take our time, and we make sure that we manage the peak,” Tavares said. “We don’t want to rush. … It’s better to take a few weeks more to validate properly than to rush and then to make mistakes in terms of quality. That’s what we are doing now. We are managing the peak between the products that we have ahead of us. [There’s a] huge product blitz coming to the U.S. market in the next few months.”
Meanwhile, Stellantis has made it quite clear that it’s struggling financially, particularly in the U.S., where it’s dealing with some of the highest inventory levels in the industry, along with disappointing financials that prompted the company to scale back its earnings forecast recently. The automaker may even go so far as to axe some of its brands, too, particularly as some of them have underperformed for years now.
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That thing gotta a hemi in it?