New Car Industry Layoffs: A Warning to Ford and GM

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Aug 12, 7:27AM EDT · Published Aug 10, 7:23AM EDT

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New Car Industry Layoffs: A Warning to Ford and GM — © Dodge Ram 1500 V8 SLT Laramie Quad Cab 2001 (BY-SA 2.0) by RL GNZLZ

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Automaker Stellantis N.V. (NYSE: STLA | STLA Price Prediction) will lay off almost 2,500 workers in the United States.
Ford and General Motors should take warning.
Also: Dividend legends to hold forever.

The huge multinational car company Stellantis N.V. (NYSE: STLA), which owns Chrysler, Ram, Jeep, and Dodge, will lay off 2,450 of its workers in the United States because it will stop making the older generation of the Ram 1500 pickup. The latest version of the vehicle will remain in production.

The corporation’s PR department described the reason for the layoffs as: “We introduced the new 2025 Ram 1500 Tradesman with incredible value and content. The upgraded electrical architecture allows new technologies useful to commercial fleets for better tracking and improved safety systems.” The industry faces ongoing problems as it tries to find a new direction in a market where EVs are supposed to be the future but are not selling well. In the meantime, the industry’s large companies must decide which gasoline-powered models they will keep in production to make money today.

Stellantis is also reworking other parts of its lineup. The company’s Dodge division will stop making the gasoline-powered versions of its iconic Challenger and Charger. Each has massive gas-guzzling engines that, in theory, versions with electric engines could replace.

As big car companies evaluate their brands, some have cut back on EVs, which are supposed to be the industry’s future. Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) said it would increase the production of its big Super Duty pickups. In 2022, Ford said it would use production capacity to produce as many as 150,000 of its EV Ford F-150 Lightning. That has not happened. Ford is already a financial disaster.

General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) recently walked back plans for EV production. CEO Mary Barra stepped away from plans to be able to build one million EVs a year.

The U.S. car sector is confused. Recent decisions by GM and Ford show that. Stellantis is discontinuing a pickup line. Pickups have been the backbone of U.S. vehicle sales.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.