2023-07-11 07:10:34
Stellantis chief executive Carlos Tavares pledged on Monday (July 10) to produce more automobiles at Italian factories, eventually aiming to manufacture “one million vehicles” per year, in a context of “electrification and Chinese competition in Europe”.
“Our intention is clearly to locate more models in Italian factories”starting with that of Melfi in the south of the country, he said after a meeting in Rome with the Italian Minister for Business, Adolfo Urso.
Mr. Tavares thus announced his intention to “to produce a fifth model in addition to the four already announced” for this production site, “subject to performance improvement”Stellantis said in a statement.
It will be “high-end models with high added value for foreign brands as well as an Italian model on the brand new STLA-Medium platform”presented last week and designed for electric vehicles.
The Franco-Italian-American manufacturer and Rome have “shared the need to immediately reverse the negative trend in production” automobile “of the last twenty years” in Italy, betting on the “Made in Italy”, assured Mr. Urso in a press release.
The two parties have set up a working group “to reach a transition agreement by the end of the month within the framework of a new European industrial policy which will have to protect production and employment” of the internal market, he continued.
The last two models presented by Fiat, the 600e SUV and the small Topolino, will be manufactured respectively in Poland and Morocco.
Mr Tavares declared himself however “convinced that with Adolfo Urso we will create the necessary conditions to reverse the downward trend in production volumes in the next two years and to build together the roadmap that will allow us to produce one million vehicles in Italy”.
Stellantis produced just 685,753 vehicles in Italy last year, in a market held back by shortages of microchips.
“The announcement of the fifth model in Melfi, which we have repeatedly requested, is a positive response”judged the metalworking union Fim-Cisl, welcoming this “confirmation that the Italian factories are at the heart of the group’s global balance”.
Mr. Urso’s initiative echoes that of the French Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, who on Wednesday (July 5) asked Stellantis to show “patriotism” by repatriating to France the production of small electric vehicles, such as the Peugeot 208.
“The economic equation linked to the forced relocation of this project would be neither in the interest of the company nor in that of the country”had however judged Mr. Tavares in an interview published the same day in Figaro.
Stellantis told AFP on Monday that it had “confirmed last week its commitment to produce 12 models of high added value electric vehicles in France”including the electric Peugeot 308, 3008 and 408.
While its French factories produced 678,400 cars in 2022, Stellantis aims to reach “more than one million vehicles and components” by 2024.
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