Mopar dealers blaming CEO for slowing sales (updated)

American dealer network leaders have publicly taken Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares to task for “short-term decision making” which they claim that, by boosting the company’s stock price, increased his own compensation. The company had dramatically raised prices during the post-COVID car shortages, only to find customers defecting to other brands and dealership stock cluttering up the lots.

While Stellantis has started to cut price and slap more cash onto car hoods, the dealers accused the company of trying too hard to keep its profit margins intact in the face of slowing sales.

If the brands have been diluted, dealers do hold some portion of the blame; Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, and Ram dealers have consistently been rated the worst in the country in national surveys. Many dealers rushed to slap premiums onto cars and trucks when there were shortages, and added hefty surcharges to “hot” new cars, such as Hellcat Challengers, when they were launched. Some were blamed for taking deposits on such limited edition cars and then selling them to a higher bidder.

In addition, referring incessantly to “the Dodge brand” rather than Dodge and so forth could well have weakened the names over time by emphasizing that they are not real—just nameplates of a larger company. No other company consistently refers to its cars as coming from, say, “the Toyota brand.” Certainly none would have a press release headline of, say, “The Lexus brand launches a new car.” One cannot imagine Daimler writing press releases about “the Mercedes brand.”

The criticism was aired in Automotive News, which said Stellantis had not yet responded to a request for comments.

Jeep raised prices on the Wrangler as Ford introduced the Bronco, a direct competitor. Volkswagen is bringing up an electric off-roader to compete with the Wrangler and Wagoneer S, as well; and Rivian already has a battery-powered electric off-road-capable SUV.

Update: the company responded the next day.

(Cartoon graphic used to avoid implying that a particular dealer endorsed these views.)