Stellantis NV’s Italy-based car production dropped 36% in the first half, as a delay in electric-vehicle subsidies promised by the government exacerbated a slowdown in EV demand, an auto workers’ union said.
Overall production of cars and light commercial vehicles in the first six months totaled 303,510, down 25% versus the year-earlier period, Ferdinando Uliano, the secretary general of the Fim-Cisl union, said in a statement Monday.
If the trend continues, Stellantis will produce roughly 500,000 vehicles in Italy this year, well below the 751,000 in 2023, according to the union. The impact is sharpest at the company’s plants at Melfi and Mirafiori, the latter of which saw first-half production plunge 63%, Uliano said.
The figures mark a setback for Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s efforts to boost auto production in the country to 1 million vehicles by 2030. The government clashed for months with Stellantis over its plans to cut jobs and move production to cheaper sites outside Italy.
The tensions even forced Stellantis Chief Executive Officer Carlos Tavares to rename an Alfa Romeo model produced in Poland, and to remove Italian flags from Fiat Topolino cars assembled in Morocco.
Shared goal
Tavares said in February that his firm shared the target of 1 million Italian-made cars by 2030 – or even sooner if possible. Still, the CEO has been overhauling Stellantis’s industrial footprint with stringent cost reductions in Italy, France and the US at a time governments are looking to protect local industries put at risk by the shift to EVs. Tavares also blasted Meloni’s efforts to attract a Chinese car manufacturer to Italy to make up for lost Stellantis production.
“We all agree on the goal to increase production but we must establish implementation times in detail,” Fim-Cisl’s Uliano said in the statement, calling for a meeting with the government. The goal of “1 million vehicles means doubling current production, given the negative data from the first half, we want concrete answers.”
Production at the Melfi plant in southern Italy declined 58% in the first half, according to the union, while works at Mirafiori, where the electric Fiat 500 is assembled, will be halted from July 15 to Aug. 25, according to Fiom-Cgil, another union representing Italian auto workers.
A Stellantis spokesman didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.
Stellantis Chief Financial Officer Natalie Knight in April warned that slowing demand in Europe would continue to squeeze margins before improving in the second part of the year.
The carmaker must show “flawless execution in the second half and management will no longer be able to draw solely on the cost-cutting theme, which is clearly needed but likely insufficient,” Oddo BHF analyst Michael Foundoukidis wrote in a note on Monday, trimming estimates for the company and cutting his price target on the stock to €25 from €30. Stellantis shares were little changed in afternoon trading in Milan on Monday.
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With assistance from Alberto Brambilla.
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Albertina Torsoli | Bloomberg Stellantis NV’s Italy-based car production dropped 36% in the first half, as a delay in electric-vehicle subsidies promised by the government exacerbated a slowdown in EV demand, an auto workers’ union said. Overall production of cars and light commercial vehicles in the first six months totaled 303,510, down 25% versus the …
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