December 1, 2025 - Repopulating the Chrysler Tech Center

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for  December 1, 2025, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry.  

Much has changed at Stellantis in the past 12 months. Exactly one year ago, Carlos Tavares was ousted as CEO at the automaker that he formed from the 2021 merger of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and PSA. Over the preceding four years, over 50,000 jobs were eliminated at the company, many of them in North America, where spending was being slashed. There was a major exodus of experienced staff who felt Tavares didn't understand the North American market and wasn't investing in the right products here. Sales and quality had both dropped, along with the job cuts, and the North American headquarters at the Chrysler Technology Center in Auburn Hills, Michigan, was looking like a ghost town. 

Since Tavares' departure and the naming of Antonio Filosa last spring as his successor, much has changed. Some executives, most notably Tim Kuniskis, have since returned, and the company is revamping its entire product plan for the remainder of the decade. Filosa understands the importance of North America to the company's bottom line and the adjustments that have to be made to deal with evolving trade policy under the Trump administration. With a lot of future production shifting from Canada and Mexico to U.S. plants, Stellantis has been ramping up hiring in 2025 and is adding 2,000 white collar jobs in addition to the more than 5,000 hourly jobs that will be added over the next couple of years. The company says the white collar jobs are in engineering, manufacturing, quality, and other departments, all areas where the company needs to focus as it realigns its factory footprint and tries to improve its supplier relationships and nagging quality issues. 

It will take some time to see if the added staff can actually turn around Stellantis' fortunes in North America, but several upcoming product launches from Jeep may provide an early hint. Having a plan is just the first step in a difficult process, and the company must now execute on those plans, something it has often failed to do in the past, most notably with its electric vehicle rollout. 

Thanks for listening.