Just a few weeks after the car company announced a comprehensive restructuring of its management, the Opel-Mother reported a sharp drop in sales in the third quarter. The background is problems in the important North American market.
Specifically set Stellantis 33 billion euros in the third quarter, a decrease of 27 percent within a year, as the company announced. The company attributed the slump to a 20 percent drop in shipments; Headwinds also came from price and currency effects. Stellantis experienced production gaps on several models due to a global product change, planned inventory reductions in North America and the difficult European market environment. In addition to Opel, the company includes, among others Peugeot, Citroën, Fiat, Chrysler, Jeep and Alfa Romeo.
20 new models are to come onto the market
“Although performance in the third quarter of 2024 is below our potential, I am pleased with our progress in addressing operational issues, particularly inventory levels in the USA, which have been significantly reduced,” said the new CFO Doug Ostermann. The reduction in inventories is happening faster than expected. Ostermann therefore expects to reduce inventories at US dealers by 100,000 units before the target date for the end of November.
Although analysts at Stellantis had feared an even greater decline in sales to 31.1 billion, this also shows the current weakness of the automotive industry. Numerous companies reported poor figures for the third quarter: At Mercedes-Benz, profits fell by almost half Volkswagen Profits fell by 64 percent.
The group is on track to bring around 20 new models onto the market this year. The location has the potential to benefit from future new developments at Stellantis Germany But not necessarily anything – even when it comes to the German brand Opel. Opel boss Florian Huettl (47) believes that the production of cheap electric cars in Germany is not feasible given the location conditions.
“We cannot build electric cars in Germany that cost between 25,000 and 30,000 euros,” Huettl told the “Augsburger Allgemeine”. “With German wage and energy costs, this is simply not possible today.” In order to remain competitive, Opel produces cheaper models such as Corsa and Frontera at cheaper locations abroad.
German locations not at risk
Huettl is therefore calling for a new edition of the state purchase bonus and investments in the charging infrastructure in order to stimulate the stagnating German electric car market. The Opel boss does not see the German locations at risk despite the challenges. The people of Rüsselsheim have invested “massively” in their German plants.
Manager Huettl has bad news for die-hard Opel fans. He announced that the planned new edition of the cult model Manta as an electric car would be delayed. The premiere, originally planned for 2025, will “take even longer,” he said, without giving a specific date.
Opel was on the verge of extinction in the mid-1900s. Years of tough austerity measures followed, and thousands of jobs were lost as a result of the restructuring. In 2017, Opel was taken over by the French group PSA, and since the merger of PSA and Fiat-Chrysler in 2021, the traditional brand has been part of the resulting Stellantis Group. Because the market for electric cars is weakening, a construction stop was imposed on a planned battery cell factory of the Stellantis Group, which it wants to build with Mercedes-Benz and the energy group Total in Kaiserslautern. The project at the Opel site in Kaiserslautern is already being supported with hundreds of millions of euros in tax money.