Last week didn’t just bring snow to New Orleans, it also brought a raft of Stellantis dealers to town for a key meeting – and most of them left feeling revved up about the year ahead.
In contrast to most reports coming out of events like this, and the generally horrible no good very bad year just experienced by some many Stellantis stores, it seems those holding corner offices at dealer level are buoyed by what they heard from company execs at a weekend meeting in New Orleans. One went so far as to describe the event as ‘shockingly good’, a superlative rarely leveled at suits by dealer principals.
Executives are said to have ‘repeatedly apologized’ to an estimated 2,600 dealers throughout the meeting, citing the recognition of problems with pricing, incentives, general consistency, and what can charitably be described as a mismatch of working styles when decrees were being issued from across the pond. Reports are claiming a reset of relations between Stellantis top brass and dealers.
It seems most of the problems can be traced directly back to Clueless Carlos Tavares, the ex-CEO who bounced late last year after promising to stick around until 2026 when a successor was found. No one appears to be missing his managerial style, especially after a reign in which far too many decisions were being made by executives in Europe who had no clue about the North American market and its intricacies. Now he’s gone, people like newly minted NA chief operating officer Antonio Filosa say they find themselves free to listen and speak with dealers instead of enduring the top-down approach apparently favored by the Yurpeans. Having the straight-talking Tim Kuniskis come out of retirement to lead Ram has also helped. Kuniskis apparently doesn’t want the top job, despite the Stellantis CEO role being wide open after the departure of Clueless Carlos. In an interview with Newsweek, he expressed a desire to focus on product, not politics, and wants to stick as the head of Ram.
Speaking of product, a seemingly throwaway line in the Detroit News article from yesterday details a couple of changes to introduction cadence, including “pushing back” the launch of the Jeep Recon SUV to “late in the year.” Details aren’t immediately clear, since the last we heard the little Recon was to start production in Toluca next month. We’ll keep our ear to the ground.
[Image: Stellantis]
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