Automotive News Europe — 2024-05-28
Automotive Industry
A global slowdown in sales of full-electric vehicles is pushing Stellantis to significantly slow production rates.
Stellantis will build a mild hybrid version of its 500e small electric car at its Mirafiori plant in Turin, Italy, from the first quarter of 2026, amid a slowdown in electric car sales.
The announcement came after Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares met in Turin with union representatives who had long been asking the company to boost production at Fiat's historic home with a new high-volume, cheaper model.
The factory currently produces the 500e model, but a global slowdown in sales of full-electric vehicles has pushed Stellantis to significantly slow production rates, introducing protracted furlough periods for the plant's workers.
"Carlos Tavares recalled the importance of offering affordable and high-quality cars for Italian customers," Stellantis said in a statement.
Automotive News Europe, which first reported the hybrid 500 production earlier on Monday, 27 May 2024, said Stellantis was aiming for total annual output of 200,000 500s, including 125,000 hybrids, compared with fewer than 80,000 electric models in 2023.
The automaker added that developing affordable cars also depended on external factors including lower energy costs, the development of a charging network for EVs, and long-term subsidies for auto purchases.
The move might help the automaker improve its relations with the Italian government, which has often criticized the group for its falling output in the country and for making some of its Fiat and Alfa Romeo models abroad.
Stellantis - Italy's only major automaker - and the Rome government are in talks over a plan aimed at restoring the group's production in the country to 1 m vehicles by the end of this decade from around 750,000 in 2023.
"The shared ambition with the Italian government to reach one million vehicles produced in Italy by 2030, will need a supportive business environment, currently impacted by electrification uncertainties and strong competition with new entrants to the market," the automaker said.
FIM-Cisl union leader Ferdinando Uliano, who attended the meeting with Tavares, said Stellantis told him and others that production of the hybrid 500e would start in the first quarter of 2026 but did not give details about targeted output figures.
From January to April 2024, Fiat sold 12,288 units of the 500e in the EU and UK and EFTA markets, compared with 17,363 in the same period in 2023, according to figures from Dataforce. Sales of the combustion-engine 500 fell to 32,504 from 40,750.
The automaker also said it would build a hybrid version of the Jeep Compass SUV at the Melfi plant in southern Italy.
According to sources contacted by Automotive News Europe, the hybrid version will be the third powertrain offering for the next-generation Compass that will launch as full electric and plug-in hybrid variants in 2026.
The next Compass will be built in Melfi and share Stellantis’ new STLA Medium platform with four other compact electric models, two for DS Automobiles, one for Opel and one for Lancia, all to be built in Melfi.
Stellantis also said that production of the hybrid Fiat Panda city car, made in Pomigliano near Naples, could be extended.
FIM Cisl's Uliano said the current Panda model, first introduced in 2011, could continue being made until 2029, depending on developments in European Union rules.