A year ago, I made the prediction that the pretending to work Fortune 1000 companies will soon start to fail and Stellantis was part of that original thesis. Stellantis did not disappoint:

Stellantis stock (STLA) is down 75% from its high and only 24% down today.

Sergio Marchionne, God bless his hard-working soul, must be turning in his grave. He was working 20 hours/day, 365 day/year on two continents to resuscitate Fiat Crysler from the dead and he did.

Sergio inspired me to buy my first Jeep Wrangler in 2012 for $36k. 300 000 miles and 3 continents later, the Jeep never stranded me and was in dealership once for an axle seal. Turned out be much better quality that the German and British cars I was driving up to then.

In 2022, I bought the exact same spec Jeep Wrangler, but it now costed me $66k compared to $36k in 2012.

86% inflation in 10 years, while the St. Louis Federal Reserve tied to convince us that car inflation was ONLY 15.35% from 2012-2022. Shrinkflation, reduction in quality as a source of inflation, never crossed the Fed’s minds either. Here is Shrinkflation in practice:

The 2022 Wrangler stranded us on a cliff with just 2000 miles on the odometer, had been assembled by people working from home and it spent 7 months out of its first year in the dealership, which was also working from home. FCA/Stellantis had to buy it back as a LEMON, pay additional $11k in damages, on top of production costs of roughly $30k, and $10k in dealership costs for 7 months of pretend work. Stellantis easily wrote off $55k on my vehicle.

2022 was peak shrinkflation, then sales fell off a cliff.

To continue the economic experiment, I bought a new 2024 Jeep Gladiator with identical spec as the 2022 Wrangler and 2012 Wrangler, just 250 kilograms (500 lbs) more steel for the extra pickup bed and frame. Stellantis was desperate to sell me the Gladiator for $47k, a $15k discount to the MSRP, or $19k less than the 2022 Wrangler for a vehicle, that had 500 pounds more of steel.

During the first year, the Gladiator STEERING box BROKE in the middle of a U-turn and crashed the vehicle in the guard rail (thank God it was at low speed and there was guard rail!), STEERING clicks, engine rattles, the hood, tail gate and suspension have PLENTY of RUST, the AC works when it wants to. The dealer never knows how to fix anything.



Every time I have been at the Jeep shop, they were taking out the failed engines from several new vehicles like in the picture above. And Jeep is the most durable brand in the Stellantis lineup, cannot imagine how bad Citroen, Fiat or Opel are. This is why Stellantis global market share has nosedived 25%.

What Fortune 1000 CEOs do not realize is that while inflation can be infinite, shrinkflation can only go down to 0, and their companies go bankrupt well before the quality of their products hits 0.

Stellantis CEO Antonio Filosa wrote today ”…make our customers and their preferences our guiding star." Let’s see if Antonio can learn how to build a car that lasts longer than 1 month.

 

"Buy Buy Buy" "BullYa".