Alexandre
Stellantis has confirmed that production of the Maserati Levante will soon come to an end. The brand's first iconic SUV Maserati will leave the assembly lines at the Mirafiori plant on March 31. This news comes as a blow to employees at the Turin site who, for the second day running, expressed their discontent with a spontaneous protest outside the plant, underlining the urgency of the situation and the lack of answers concerning their future.
The Levante, launched in 2016, has played a major role in Maserati's production volumes at Mirafiori, with up to around 25 units assembled every day in the best years. The end of its production will result in a significant reduction in activity, leaving Maserati's daily output down to just 8 vehicles, divided between the Ghibli, Quattroporte, GranTurismo and GranCabrio models. At the same time, another assembly line is concentrating on the Fiat 500, with a daily output of around 215 units. As a reminder, the Grecale is assembled in Cassino and the MC20 in Modena.
Faced with this situation, union voices were raised calling for immediate action. "When workers spontaneously go on strike, it means we've reached a limit. There's no more time to lose; it's imperative to act immediately," said Edi Lazzi of Fiom Torino. The cessation of Levante production highlights the urgent need for innovation and diversification in the models produced at Mirafiori.
Luigi Paone, General Secretary of Uilm Torino, stresses that this ruling is yet another sign of the challenges facing the Mirafiori site, reminding us of the importance of dialogue with Stellantis and the institutions to redefine the plant's production mission, Italy's automotive nerve center. The unions insist on the award of a new model to Mirafiori to compensate for the end of the Levante, in order to avoid an increase in short-time working and confirm the site's industrial vocation.
Problem: the next Levante not scheduled until 2027... and we don't even know if it will be produced in the same factory as the 2016 model.
He's stopping it now, when the next one won't come out until 2027? Couldn't they have made a final version with 650hp or even 750hp and limited it to 500 units for a finale?
Stellantis' policy is beyond comprehension.
the only thing Stellantis knows how to do is cut costs; for the rest there is no policy 😡
Yes, when you see that they're asking equipment manufacturers to drive quality down, when it's precisely up that they should be driving it up, it makes you fear the worst for Maserati and Alfa, and I'm not talking about Lancia, which has become a pale copy of PSA, which didn't hesitate to criticize Fiat when Lancia released products based on Fiat, when even if it was a disaster for the brand's image, at least... they were reliable, and given the reliability of PSA engines, we can fear the worst!
Like the discontinuation of the bravo, 159 or punto and the replacements were made to wait a few years, moreover the punto is still awaited.
The 159 was discontinued due to too many reliability problems with the 2.2 and 3.6, as well as the GM crystal gearboxes. The last bravo was never announced to be replaced, just like the last delta, which looked like a descendant of the... Lybra. The Giulia should have come out much earlier, but the copy was totally revised to be a benchmark, and so it was.
Stellentis wants to make 12% profit at all costs, even if it means selling less, unlike Renault, which uses volume to make a profit. The Italians have some superb Maserati Alfa vehicles, but I don't like the Suvs, which are unsuitable for city driving. There are hardly any French city cars left, apart from the Twingo and the 108.
The management of Maserati, and indeed of all Italian brands apart from Ferrari, is a textbook case. Certainly, in the top business schools, this management is studied as a case of catastrophic management that must not be repeated. Take, for example, the case of Fiat's B-segment, long the segment leader in Europe (600, 127 , Uno, Punto, G Punto ), and then, incredibly, Fiat's abandonment of the B-segment, decided by the late Mr Marchionne. Go figure, no doubt the other generalists must have been rubbing their hands after the Punto's non-renewal!
Always the same problem, a question of margins. Rubbing our hands yes and no, because if we go back to the time when Fiat discontinued the Punto, every manufacturer was doing the same. And the SUV disease had already arrived. They were all in the process of banishing city cars and compacts, which were in free fall, like Skoda, for example, which was cannibalizing all the VAG group's models to the point of almost wiping out Seat, or Toyota, which was cutting its costs with the Corolla, Renault and PSA, which were not renewing their vehicles entirely but just giving them a major facelift, because that's all they manage to sell, and still only in Europe, to companies of all types, or Nissan, which had completely cut its costs. The 500X stole a lot of customers from Fiat in this category, so the question is why stop the 500L so early. Above all, Dacia managed to get away with it, and now finds itself with the same problem, as its Duster is eating into the rest of the range. Then there was the investment made in the Tipo family, which should have been sold with less basic equipment and at a much lower price.
Letting French people manage Italian and American brands... the best way to create a hecatomb of bankruptcies and technical unemployment!
We've seen this with Citroën, which is a shadow of its former self, and above all Simca and Matra, which are a real mess, as is Venturi, which was supposed to be taken over by PSA but ended up in the dustbin.
gli Elkann hanno svenduto FCA ai francesi...l'avvocato Agnelli ha puntato sul cavallo sbagliato