The Italian automobile industry risks becoming inconsequential on the European scene. The cradle of historical brands such as Fiat, Ferrari or Lancia, is experiencing a year of terror with a historic drop in production. Its main car manufacturer, the Stellantis group (owner of the aforementioned Lancia and Fiat), has decreased its production in the country by 41% in the first nine months of 2024, according to union calculations, when the company had promised that it would increase its activity there to reach one million units annually in this decade. This means that the Italian automobile industry will end the current year with less than half a million vehicles assembled compared to 750,000 last year, according to the unions (OICA, the international organization of manufacturers, notes that Italian plants made more than 880,000 units in 2024).
The situation represents a drama not only for the workers, but for the entire components industry that works for Stellantis. “Our automobile industry cannot survive if production volumes remain so low,” he assured Bloomberg Roberto Vavassori, director of Anfia (the Italian automotive supply chain association) and CEO of brake supplier Brembo. “Many automobile suppliers in Italy are small and are also at risk,” added the businessman before the strike day this Friday called by the unions, which have demonstrated in Rome. It is the first protest that unites all the country’s unions in the last 30 years, which have called for “a relaunch of industrial policies” and have accused Europe of doing nothing about it, while Carlos Tavares (CEO of Stellantis) diverts the company’s production to cheaper countries.
“This inaction, combined with Stellantis’ decisions, is creating true social carnage. We believe that Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares is making decisions that are detrimental to the future of the Italian automobile industry. Tavares must assume his responsibilities,” one of the strongest unions in Italy requested in a statement collected by EP.
One of the countries that has benefited the most from the situation is Poland, which has much lower labor costs and that is why it has been left with the production of the T03, the cheapest model of the new Leapmotor brand. This is a Chinese firm of which Stellantis acquired 20% for 1.5 billion last year, which represented a radical change in the policy of a company that has always been very belligerent towards the brands of the Asian giant. In fact, despite owning a Chinese brand, Tavares this week raised the specters of factory closures in Europe if the Old Continent continued to let in firms from that country. “If the Chinese take over 10% of the market in Europe at the end of their offensive, that is 1.5 million cars. It is equivalent to seven assembly plants. European builders will have to close them or sell them to the Chinese. Nobody talks about that,” he said. in an interview with the French media Les Echos.
In addition to the T03, Poland has also retained the production of the Fiat 600, from which Stellantis had to remove the Italian flag at the request of the Government of Giorgia Meloni, so that the customer does not believe that it is produced on Italian soil. A similar case was that of an Alfa Romeo car, a brand owned by the group, which had to change its name from ‘Milano’ to ‘Junior’, because like the Fiat 600 it is made in Poland. Spain is another country well considered by Stellantis, which is close to confirming the construction of a battery plant in Zaragoza, to supply its car factory with the STLA Small production platform, which will also end up in Vigo, its largest factory in the Iberian Peninsula. The comparisons are odious: while in Italy, one of its cradles (it is an Italian-French-American manufacturer), will make less than 500,000 units this year, In Spain last year it manufactured more than a million cars.
Meloni, meanwhile, is trying to seduce Chinese automakers to fill the gap that Stellantis is leaving empty. In this sense, the Asian giant manufacturer that is closest to producing in Italy is Dongfeng.
