Who’d Want to Run a Western Automaker Like Stellantis?
It’s appropriate that Carlos Tavares accepts responsibility for unforced errors at Stellantis, but managing a car company is becoming fiendishly hard.
Carlos Tavares made unforced errors at Stellantis, but managing a car company has also become fiendishly hard.
Photographer: Eric Piermont/AFP/Getty Images
Carlos Tavares has long characterized the auto industry’s epochal challenges as a Darwinian struggle, which can only be overcome by rigorous cost-cutting and constant renewal. On Sunday, Stellantis NV’s board rightly decided that his unrelenting approach had become more hindrance than help to the automaker’s long term prospects; softly spoken Chairman John Elkann will take charge on a temporary basis during the hunt for a successor.
But while Tavares made unforced errors and became his own worst enemy, the role of running an automaker has become fiendishly hard; finding a replacement to steer the owner of Jeep and Peugeot, plus a dozen more brands, through technological upheaval, regulatory confusion and the rise of Chinese competition won’t be easy.