Carlos Tavares said the previous organization did not achieve certain goals and results, and that therefore a drastic change had to be put in place, as he himself is facing a lot of ever-increasing pressures on him. The CEO confirmed that from the new organization he expects a strong team in achieving results, good profits, and market shares that are satisfactory. One of the issues that should certainly be improved is that of inventories in the United States.
Tavares addresses several issues with reporters in Paris
A few days ago, Stellantis appointed the head of Jeep, namely Antonio Filosa, as its new chief operating officer for North America. Meanwhile, Doug Ostermann, chief operating officer of Stellantis China, as chief financial officer for the entire company. These changes are expected to ameliorate the critical situation that has formed in the United States during the past few months. In fact, as we know, Stellantis has problems with the U.S. market, which has seen sales drop sharply, rising inventories, and continuing problems with unions such as UAW.
Tavares spoke at length during a meeting with journalists at the Paris Motor Show, where Stellantis, which holds all the struggling American brands at its interior, is putting other brands, such as Alfa Romeo, Citroen, and Peugeot, in the spotlight. At the same time, the expansion of the joint venture partnership with Leapmotor, which is exhibiting several of its electric models at the event, is also moving forward. One of the most important topics Tavares addressed was the inventories of U.S. manufacturers.
Promises for inventories from Tavares
Tavares confirmed to reporters that as far as the United States is concerned, the company was experiencing problems with a less-than-optimal marketing plan for the second quarter of 2024. “This very thing created the inventory problem for all dealers in the area, which is slowly being resolved, at the right pace” – says the CEO. In fact, the inventory has already been reduced by about 52,000 vehicles in the last three months of work, and it is expected that the group will be able to drop below 330,000 vehicles in dealer inventories before reaching Christmas 2024.
Tavares believes, therefore, that the automaker is on the correct path to disposing of these cars to start a 2025 on the right foot. He ended the speech by saying that the marketing plan that failed, had been approved by the region itself anyway, and that in addition, dealerships hold of much autonomy for stock cars.
Even Tavares, it seems, at the time of the region’s decision to approve the marketing plan, sensed that it was not entirely suitable, and that it could have prevented bankruptcy. Despite everything however, the results achieved so far have left the dealers in a general crisis. Indeed, so many of them have found themselves in the “uncomfortable” situation of having to apply overly aggressive discounts in order to dispose of excess cars from Stellantis. So we shall see, whether Tavares’ predictions of fixing the inventory within two months will be promises kept or cause further problems.