Stellantis Offering Buyouts To “Pension Eligible” Employees In North America!

Stellantis North America is offering buyouts to some of its salaried employees as the company transitions toward electrification. Reports from the Automotive News first indicated the decision by the automaker, as it seeks a worldwide investment of €30 billion ($34 billion USD) in electrification and software by 2025.

The automaker is offering the buyouts to “pension eligible” non-bargaining unit salaried workers. This includes employees who are 55-years old and older with 30 years of experience and those 58-years old or older with 10 years at the company.

“Stellantis is aggressively moving forward on its journey to become the market leader in low emission vehicles. We are off to a strong start with our recent string of battery plant announcements, investments in powertrain operations, onboarding of engineering and software talent as well as the introduction of exciting vehicles, like the Jeep Wrangler 4xe and the soon to come Jeep Grand Cherokee 4xe. To assist in our transition, and to align our business priorities to a new set of critical skills and investment opportunities, Stellantis North America is offering a voluntary retirement program to eligible members of our team,” the company stated in an official press statement.

The news came as a portion of Stellantis North American employees were asked to empty their workspaces at the company’s U.S. headquarters in Auburn Hills, Michigan. The company recently announced that several of its departments will continue to work from home, as Detroit’s automakers continue to make the move to more at-home working opportunities.

Recently Stellantis has announced two new joint ventures to produce battery cells for its next generation of electrified vehicles. Its Kokomo Transmission Plant will also be producing next generation ZF-based 8-speed automatic transmission for mild-hybrid (mHEV) and plug-in (PHEV) vehicles coming from the automaker. 

The company will be releasing a number of electrified vehicles over the next four model years. The Jeep® brand, for starters, will offer an electrified model of each of its vehicles in the U.S. and Canada by 2025.

The Ram brand has already committed to producing a new electrified unibody midsized pickup, an electrified version of its popular Ram 1500 in 2024, and an all-electric version of its ProMaster large vans starting next year.

Dodge will be offering several new electrified solutions to continue its performance brand into the electrified era. The brand will offer a new Hornet C-SUV with PHEV capability in 2023, as well as an all-electric all-wheel-drive (AWD) Dodge Challenger in 2024.

As for the Chrysler brand, the company has yet to release any plans for the iconic and beloved blue-collar luxury brand. While the Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid was the brand’s first PHEV model, Ralph Gilles did show off a new crossover based on the Airflow Vision Concept vehicle that was shown at CES 2020 before the pandemic shutdown. It would be based on the upcoming STLA Large architecture according to the EV Day 2021 presentation the company did a few months ago.