Carlos Tavares, Holds His First Press Conference As CEO Of Stellantis:

This morning, Carlos Tavares, CEO of the newly formed Stellantis group held a digital press conference talking about the future strategies and what makes the new company a truly global player. Tavares answered several questions from the media and didn’t hold back about the future intentions of the new company, dealing with growing global regulations and the increasing costs to develop future vehicles.

So, here are just a few notes we took from this morning’s press conference…

Stellantis itself…

• Stellantis will be made of over 400,000 global employees
• All 14 brands that made up both the FCA and PSA portfolios will remain
• Key brands will continue to play an important role in their key markets
• Stellantis predicts that 1/3 of the company’s future sales will be electrified, with a majority of those sales coming from the EMEA region
• Stellantis currently has 29 electrified models in its global portfolio, 10 more will be added by the end of 2021

North American marketplace…

• There are no current plans to bring the Peugeot brand or any other brands to the North American market
• Dodge and Chrysler will remain, as the company recognizes how strong of an asset each brand is
• No jobs will be lost due to the merger according to Tavares
• Can improve the Alfa Romeo and FIAT brands with better specifications, marketing, better dealer networking
• With the incoming Biden administration, there will be more focus on emissions restrictions, which Stellantis thinks the company has answers for

The EMEA Region…

• Smaller car production will benefit the most from the merger due to platform sharing and advanced technology development
• Stellantis has no plans to shut down any EMEA region manufacturing plants
• Opel and future FIAT vehicles could share common technologies and architectures if need be

It’s place in China…

• Tavares has created a team to analyze the unsuccessful attempts to grow in the Chinese market place and put forth “a new winning strategy” which may or may not include the Jeep brand

Stellantis in Latin America…

• To ensure customer satisfaction, dealers will continue their current network with former FCA portfolio vehicles and PSA portfolio vehicles
• Eventually, we could see both FCA and PSA core brands sharing a single showroom, but Stellantis has to be careful not to cannibalize the brands 
• As for electrification in Latin America, it is up to the governments. Unfortunately, there is a delicate balance between the affordability of the technology and who would ultimately eat the cost of introducing the added expense of going electrified

As Tavares held his first press conference as the CEO of Stellantis, the automaker’s shares surged more than 10% at their New York Stock Exchange debut, showing similar results as its listings on the French and Italian markets yesterday.