Jeep owner Stellantis is open to Cherokee name, says CEO

Asked in an interview if he would be willing to change the Jeep Cherokee’s name if he was forced to do so, Mr. Tavares said: ‘We are prepared to go to any point, to the point where we decide with the right people and without intermediaries. ”

“At this stage I do not know if there is a real problem. But if there is one, well, we will of course solve it, ‘said Mr. Tavares said, adding that he was not personally involved in the talks.

Debate over the Cherokee name is among the issues facing Mr. Tavares, which took control of Stellantis when it was formed earlier this year, arose from the merger of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV and Peugeot manufacturer PSA. In the interview on Wednesday, Mr. Ta⁇ va⁇ res also dis⁇ cussed whether he should re⁇ duce the 14 brands of the com⁇ pany, which makes Fi⁇ at plants more com⁇ pe⁇ ti⁇ tive and its plan to stay with C⁇ hi⁇ na.

The Cherokee Nation is the largest Native American tribe in the United States, with about 370,000 members, and Jeep has sold millions of vehicles named after it. The car brand expanded the use of the Cherokee name in 2013 to a compact SUV, a smaller version of the Grand Cherokee.

The leader of the Cherokee Nation recently said he would like to see Jeep stop using his tribe’s name on his SUVs. Chuck Hoskin Jr., chief executive of the Cherokee Nation, said he was of the opinion that Jeep had good intentions, but that “it does not honor us by having our name plastered on the side of a car”, according to a statement first issued to Car and Driver last week.

“The Cherokee nation has an open dialogue with the Stellantis leadership and looks forward to continued discussions,” a tribal spokesman said Wednesday. “We appreciate Stellantis’ outgoing and thoughtful approach to this.”

Mr. Tavares’ remarks come in the wake of a broad-based crackdown on racial and social injustice in the U.S. that resulted from police killing George Floyd, an unarmed black man, in Minneapolis last weekend during Memorial Day weekend. In December, the Cleveland Indians decided to drop the baseball team’s long-standing nickname after fans and Native American groups criticized it as racist. The Washington soccer team of the NFL has dropped a name that was considered a racial slur.

The Jeep Cherokee and Grand Cherokee sport utility vehicles are among the brands’ top sellers in the United States, according to the company’s figures, 43% of Jeep sales in the largest market. Stellantis will begin a long-awaited redesign of the Grand Cherokee later this year.

Mr. Tavares said the use of the auto industry to name cars after Native American tribes was a sign of respect.

“I do not see anything that would be negative. I think it’s just about our creative passion, our artistic abilities, “said Mr Tavares.

The Jeep brand sits with for-profit drivers like Ram in the US and Peugeot in Europe. But the company’s extensive portfolio of 14 brands also includes some that have to prove their worth, said Mr. Tavares said.

Mr. Tavares said he asked each of his brand heads to work on a ten-year plan to develop more long-term visibility into product planning.

“I say, ‘Look, I’m going to give you a chance. “You have to convince me – you, the CEO of the brand – that you have a vision,” he said. Tavares said.

After a few reversals, the brands of Fiat Chrysler’s Alfa Romeo and Maserati have not made a significant comeback in recent years. The Fiat brand is struggling with aging models and poor sales, which has caused an overcapacity problem in Italian factories.

Even the in-depth Chrysler brand has declined over the past few years and now sells only three models compared to the six it offered a decade ago. According to industry figures, US sales also declined to a third of their volume in 2015.

On the PSA side, the DS brand – which focuses on high-quality sedan and sport utility vehicles – increased last year’s market share, but it still lags behind some of its German competitors.

“Having given ourselves the chance to fail, we must also be fair,” he said. Tavares said. “If the rest of the company is doing the right thing and there is one part of the company that is undermining everyone, we need to consider that.”

The Portuguese executive has built his reputation in the automotive industry as a turnaround expert. Peugeot was bleeding money when he Mr. Tavares was hired in 2013. Since then, the French carmaker has lost 5 billion euros in 2012, equivalent to about $ 6 billion, to one of the most profitable mass-market manufacturers in the industry. . Last year, it reported a net profit of € 2.17 billion, or about $ 2.62 billion, with an adjusted operating margin of 7.1% in its core business.

This time, Mr. Tavares a longer to-do list, including the integration of the European enterprises of the two enterprises and losses in China.

In Europe, Mr. Tavares visited Fiat Chrysler factories – including an Alfa Romeo plant 80 km south of Rome – and encouraged them to measure their performance against PSA plants. In addition, employees of Fiat Chrysler’s Fiat plant in Mirafiori, Italy, visited PSA’s Citroën plant in Madrid, and Mr. Tavares said they were surprised at the cost savings they did not see.

The CEO said the new company could achieve its cost-saving goals in Europe without closing factories.

Asked about the lessons he learned from the shortage of chips that have driven car plants around the world, Mr. Tavares said major suppliers are not reproducing the signals they are receiving about the looming crisis. “We are not protected,” he said. “It’s a clear lesson.”

Mr. Tavares said the industry-wide move toward electrification will continue to rely on government subsidies and other financial incentives for buyers until carmakers figure out how to cut production costs over the next few years.

“If we propose electric vehicles that are extremely efficient, but no one can buy them because they are expensive, what’s the point from an environmental perspective?” he said.

In China, joint sales of Peugeot and Fiat Chrysler accounted for less than 1% of a market that sold 20 million vehicles last year, according to industry data. Fiat Chrysler has long struggled to make a profit in the world’s largest car market, while the French carmaker sold only 45,965 vehicles in China last year, with a rapid decline over several years.

Mr. Tavares says Stellantis is not considering leaving China, removing an option he said was still on the table when the company began trading in New York earlier this year.

“We can not be away from the largest market in the world,” he said.

Write to Nick Kostov at [email protected] and Nora Naughton at [email protected]