Stellantis Facing New Car Inventory Challenges For Dec. 2023

I'll get this part out of the way first. Car prices are way too high. There is no reason any V6 Challenger or Charger should be over $32K fully loaded and out the door, GT or not. Stellantis (FCA/Mopar) is a victim of bad marketing, alot of poor judgement calls and just bad management. Stuff isn't moving because it's not marketed or priced right and there is no bigger example of this than the Hornet. This is NOT part of the brotherhood of muscle and should have never been introduced as such. That was mistake number one. I don't care if Stellantis is moving Dodge in a slightly different direction, it doesn't matter. This was wrong! On top of that, no Hornet trim level should be over $30K. The car isn't worth it. My 2013 Charger has more trunk space and interior space than a Hornet. Granted less tech and not AWD but the car is a compact and it's performance isn't anything to write home about, IDC if it is performance leading in it's segment, it's not worth that kind of money even in R/T trim. Another issue is the major price gouging of the L-cars. You want to move them, drop the prices. Plain and simple. No one can afford them! Okay so they're going away and the new car is coming out in a few years. Cool. Not the first time in history that something in the world changed. Make your money off of units sold but to that you need to price them where they can sell. Duh! Doesn't take a college major to figure that out! You want to make more money off the lower end L-Cars meaning 5.7L R/T cars, bring out some Direct Connection upgrades for the 11+ Chargers and Challengers and people will start flocking in again. they're already sold so you don't have to worry about tax credits and things like that. Bring back the Mopar Stage kits and upgrades and trickle down parts from the higher end cars that can fit on the lower model cars and make money!!!!! That's seriously double dipping on products that are already on the road because now you're bringing customers in that want to upgrade their cars and they can do it while remaining emissions legal by utilizing the upgrades from the higher end cars but they're coming straight to Stellantis for the upgrades instead of running out the door to aftermarket shops! Not rocket science! People are swapping hemi engines and hellcats and 392s into their lower end models because they want their cars that they brought because they like the products so if you want money, cater to the market that the brand actually created!!!!!!!!! You have a chokehold on the American performance market and you're stepping over dollars to pick up pennies when MOPAR IS A BRAND THAT CAN MAKE MONEY WITHOUT TRYING SEEING THAT THE WORLD LOVES YOUR PRODUCTS!!!!!!!! This is a brand that doesn't need to use "Final Call" Scare tactics and all of that kinds of stuff. Okay so Stellantis is switching it up and moving to an Inline-6 twin turbo for everything. Alright cool, just make sure that when it drops that Direct Connection is right there to keep the mods coming! Stellantis is replacing the top tier performance cars with EVs. Okay cool anything above a regular Hellcat is a low volume mover anyway and you don't need an EV to make Hellcat numbers with the fact that Stellantis can easily connect the next-gen hybrid ZF 8-speed to a Hurricane HO engine and make roughly 720hp or if need be take the Nettuno 3.0L V6 Turbo Hybrid that produces over 800hp in the Alfa Romeo supercar and drop that into a next gen Charger and match a Jailbreak if need be or anything else and keep the EV for anything over 880hp and call it a day. Mind you that's even before offering any kind of 50-state legal turbo upgrades from Garrett in a Stage 1 or Stage 2 package for any trim level of Hurricane from Standard output on up. The same thing goes with Ram or Jeep or even Chrysler if it survives. Stellantis' problem boils down to Marketing for the most part because they decided that instead of making this transition easy, they decided to piss alot of their fan base off with the way they presented things. Don't get me wrong, I love the energy and presentation that Tim Kuniskis gives. Personally if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have any hope that Dodge will have anything worthwhile and I wouldn't be as interested in whatever the next chapter for the Mopar brands is going to hold. He has an incredible talent (in my opinion) to put a positive and energetic spin on things that may sit beyond the levels of some of our interests when it comes to what we want and love from this brand. I'm not an EV person but I would give something that is electric a chance if it is from the Dodge brand and while that is mostly out of my personal passion for the brand, it's also because of the fact that it was revealed with energy and enthusiasm and as strange as it may be, it is interesting. But as a whole, Stellantis does not market as it should and it does not strategize properly either. I've said before that with Jeep being what it has become with the Grand Cherokee and Wagoneer models, it is more of a luxury brand than Chrysler and if Jeep were to come out with something slightly smaller than the Grand Cherokee and more car-like even while being a crossover, Chrysler's fate is sealed to go sit beside Plymouth as a brand that was and is no more. There is no more luxury in a Chrysler 300 than there is in a Hellcat or even Scat Pack Charger and the Charger moves better. The minivan is all Chrysler really has left to stand on and again, if Dodge were to bring back the Caravan and Grand Caravan, again, what would be the point of the Chrysler brand. The full EV trend is slowing down fast thanks to the fact that some of these hybrids are performing better than expected and with breakthroughs in hybrid transmission technology, especially with what ZF is doing, EVs may get reduced to fleet and commercial vehicles, which wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to be honest. Let's think for a second, if Dodge brings out a Hurricane Hybrid making hellcat numbers but with a hybrid system that I can get nearly 30-miles of non-emissions driving if I want to or have that combined power to have Hellcat matching performance in a vehicle that is designed to be more of an all-around vehicle when it comes to performance and functionality and I can get factory upgrades to enhance what I have, why would I take something different? Especially if it's marketed at an affordable price point. The Mopar brands could literally make money hand over fist on both new vehicles and used vehicles because of the following it has. There is so much untapped potential that the bean counters should be looking at! If making money is the goal and you have vehicles that are desirable and people buy them to customize them, then make the vehicles affordable as %*(K and flood every single dealership with access to Direct Connection and make every dealership a power brokers dealership so they can sell as much as they possible can! Ramp up Magneti Marelli parts and B-Pro Auto parts and give dealerships the tools to make money! Bring back the upgrade packages for Jeep Wranglers and Gladiators and for goodness sakes drop the Hurricane engine under the hood of these vehicles and bring back the inline-6 Jeep! Offer performance upgrades for the 2.0L 4Xe in the jeep and also make that the base engine for the Charger and Challenger and bring out some SRT4/ GLH type stuff for it! Make Mopar Great Again! The end of the V8 engines doesn't need to be the end of this party! Bring the SRT4 vibe back where we had nasty small engine giant killers that everyone loved! Wild, affordable cars that made the world fun!

Reply 2 Likes