Antonio Filosa says Stellantis has one main focus in the year ahead: boosting the automaker’s U.S. retail market share.
Filosa is the company’s chief operating officer for North America, and Stellantis, owner of Jeep, Ram, Dodge, Chrysler and Fiat, had a challenging 2024, with down sales, high inventories and leadership changes.
But Filosa, who’s said to be in the running to replace Carlos Tavares, who resigned as CEO abruptly Dec. 1, sees better days ahead.
Antonio Filosa, the Stellantis North American chief operating officer, stands in the Ram show room during the 2025 Detroit Auto Show inside the Huntington Place in Detroit on Friday, Jan. 10, 2025.
For now though, Filosa said he is focused on his current position, one he was tasked with during a leadership shakeup in October, moving from his prior role as head of Jeep. He said he’s enthusiastic about his new job and that’s what’s got his attention and his focus.
“I need to have the job done right,” he said Friday, speaking with journalists during the Detroit Auto Show’s media day.
For Filosa, getting the job done right starts with building a team that knows the U.S. market and consumers. Key in that team was welcoming back talent that had been lost, such as Tim Kuniskis, who retired unexpectedly last year and now will be working to bring Ram back to prominence.
In the immediate future, a change in presidential administrations will loom large, but Filosa said the company is ready to work with the incoming Trump administration. He hasn’t spoken with either President-elect Donald Trump or Vice President-elect JD Vance, but there have been discussions with other officials, he indicated.
Stressing something that would probably be appreciated by Trump, who has threatened to dramatically expand tariffs, Filosa noted that “to us, the U.S. is the biggest market Stellantis has the privilege to operate in. It’s the biggest priority.”
In speaking to Filosa and others, “reset” appears to be a major theme for Stellantis.
Antonio Filosa, the Stellantis North American chief operating officer, talks with media members during the 2025 Detroit Auto Show inside the Huntington Place in Detroit on Friday, Jan. 10, 2025.
Filosa noted that Stellantis had created distance with partners, such as dealers and suppliers. He said he’s been talking with dealers whenever he can, which will include meeting them in New Orleans later this month for the 2025 National Automobile Dealers Association Show.
That goes beyond just trying to repair what had become a frayed relationship, with U.S. dealers calling out the company’s direction under Tavares. Filosa, discussing the impact of the massive wildfires in Southern California, noted that he’d spoken with two Los Angeles dealers on Thursday to “try to connect, to see what we could do.”
Filosa said he’s also talked with UAW President Shawn Fain and Kevin Gotinsky, head of the UAW’s Stellantis department, and plans to meet with them again.
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“I believe there is common ground to work well together,” he said, indicating that both sides want plants producing more. The union had been threatening a national strike over product commitments but had eased back on that threat more recently.
Inventories had been a major issue in 2024, but Filosa said they are in a better spot to start the year, at north of 300,000 vehicles, which is “much healthier” than the almost half-a-million vehicles in dealer inventory in June and July.
New products should help more. In particular, the unnamed replacement for the Jeep Cherokee, which we can expect to see later this year. Other products, including the Ramcharger extended range pickup, Dodge Charger Daytona and Jeep Wagoneer S are also on the way.
Filosa predicted that with a higher market share, demand would push production at the plants and lead to the “flywheel spinning in the right way.”
“The whole point is to sell more, right? It’s a very complex business but it ends with just one thing, a customer that is happy to buy our cars. We need to find more of those,” he said.
Contact Eric D. Lawrence: elawrence@freepress.com. Become a subscriber. Submit a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Stellantis executive: U.S. biggest company priority