So Stellantis rolls into NADA this year and tells their dealers they need 25% sales growth this year and that it's "the year of execution." No more excuses, apparently. This is the same company that spent the last two years drowning its dealers in overpriced, overstocked inventory nobody wanted, watched its US market share fall from 12.5% to 8%, and basically had its own dealer council write an open letter calling leadership a disaster. And now the ask is 25% growth in a market that Cox Automotive projects will be down 2.4% overall. In what world does that math work? I'm not a Stellantis dealer but I know several and the mood is somewhere between exhausted and furious. Anyone on the inside want to explain what the actual plan is here?
April 26, 2026 - 19:58
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I am a Stellantis dealer…
I am a Stellantis dealer. The mood you're describing is accurate. Filosa is more likeable than Tavares and the product lineup is actually improving on paper but 25% growth in this market is a number that exists to set a target, not because anyone seriously thinks it's achievable. We're just hoping for something closer to flat and calling it a win.
The 25% target is worth…
The 25% target is worth understanding as a management communication tool rather than an operational forecast. When a new leadership team inherits a situation this damaged they have two options. They can set a realistic number that signals managed decline and watch their best dealers start shopping their points, or they can set an aspirational number that signals genuine recovery ambition and hope the dealer body stays engaged long enough to see whether the product pipeline can deliver. Filosa chose the second path and it is probably the right call given the alternative. Nobody is actually being held accountable to 25% in a market that is projecting down. The number exists to prevent the conversation from being about survival and reframe it around growth. Whether that works depends entirely on whether the Ram 1500 refresh and the Jeep product cadence actually land the way they need to in the back half of the year.
Stellantis reported Q1 net…
Stellantis reported Q1 net profit of $443 million on April 30. Looks like recovery momentum. The detail buried in the filing is that the profitability was largely driven by a credit for refund of Trump tariffs rather than operational performance. Strip out that one-time item and the underlying picture is weaker pricing, higher costs, and inventory adjustments. CEO Filosa simultaneously announced the Value Creation Program, described as an ambitious global cost-cutting initiative focused on North America and Europe. No specifics yet. From a vendor and supplier standpoint, a global cost-cutting program without specifics is the moment to start stress-testing your Stellantis contract exposure. The VCP language is vague by design. Specifics come later, usually in the form of renegotiation requests or decommit notices. If Stellantis is a meaningful part of your book and you have not already modeled what a 10 to 20 percent volume reduction looks like in your P&L, now is the time to do that.
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