Alexandre
The news is in: Stellantis will suspend production at its iconic Mirafiori plant in Turin until early 2025. This closure, one of a series of interruptions this year, highlights the deep crisis facing the Italian automotive industry and, more broadly, the electric car sector in Europe.
Prolonged stoppage symptomatic of a structural crisis
Mirafiori, which employs 2,800 workers, is now out of work, will not restart its production lines until January 8, 2025. This closure comes after several stops already registered in 2024 The company's production is scheduled for seven weeks over the summer, followed by periods of interruption in September and October. These stoppages are explained by a dramatic fall in demand for electric cars. In Italy, where only 4 % of sales are of 100 % electric vehicles, the Fiat 500e struggled to achieve sales of 2,000 units in the first ten months of the year. This figure represents less than ten working days for the Mirafiori plant.
According to Stellantis, the market for electric city cars (BEV) in Europe contracted by 54 % compared with 2023, a situation that makes continued production economically unviable. In the luxury segment, key markets such as China and the United States also recorded significant declines, affecting the Maserati Granturismo and Grancabrio models produced at the same plant.
Electricity transition strategy called into question
Mirafiori's closure is a major blow for Stellantis, but it also reflects the challenges the company faces in the energy transition. According to the group, producing electric cars costs around 40 % more than combustion modelsChinese competition, with its 30 % lower production costs, is making the market even more complex.
Stellantis nevertheless tried to reassure observers by announcing production of a hybrid version of the Fiat 500 at Mirafiori from November 2025. However, this solution seems a long way off for the plant's workers, whose future hangs on prolonged short-time working allowances.
A negative production record in 2024
Mirafiori closure not an isolated case. All Stellantis sites in Italy to record production cuts in 2024some reaching alarming levels. According to FIM-CISL data, total Stellantis production in Italy was could fall below 500,000 vehicles this year, the lowest level since 1958. Mirafiori, once a flagship of the Italian automotive industry, will not produce even 20,000 vehicles by 2024, marking an all-time negative record.
Unions sound the alarm
Faced with this situation, the unions are calling on the Italian government to intervene. FIOM-CGIL, FIM-CISL and UILM denounce the exponential use of social shock absorbers and call for an emergency meeting with Giorgia MeloniItalian Prime Minister. They also criticized Stellantis for its lack of strategic vision. Edi Lazzi, secretary of FIOM Turin, said: "We are asking for new models and job guarantees, but the company is responding with production stoppages and short-time working."
Growing pressure on Stellantis and the governmentt
Closure rekindles tensions between Stellantis and Italian governmentalready exacerbated by delays in strategic projects such as the Termoli Gigafactory. The Italian authorities, who had increased their Automotive Funds 640 million to support the energy transition, are now demanding concrete results. Giorgia Meloni and her team find themselves under pressure, both to save jobs and to ensure that Italy remains a major automotive player in Europe.
In concrete terms, the only hope for Mirafiori workers We're still waiting for the production of the new 500 hybrid and the evolution of the 500 electric, which will be less expensive and offer greater range. But the wait will continue for many months yet.
How to make an excellent city car, the best on the market, and make it difficult to sell because it's too expensive and falls victim to the reluctance of electric cars. This is Stellantis' recipe for success, having designed an excellent Fiat 500e without understanding that it would be difficult to sell as it is. And the worst thing is that Stellantis persists with the Fiat 600e and the Alfa Romeo Junior, which also have hybrid models, but with PureTech engines whose catastrophic reputation is well known.
And I'm not talking about Abarth, which has abandoned all combustion engines, imagining that customers would rush out to buy electric. I understand that sales of the Abarth 500e are fairly confidential.
The 600E is a clear improvement on the 500E (significantly more range than the latter for only slightly more money).
As far as engines are concerned, the mHEV 100 and 136 are not PureTechs as we have known them up to now. More than 40% of the architecture is different between an EB2 Gen2 engine and an EB2 Gen3.
The last trace of the living Fiat 500 was found on a wall in Mirafiori: "Carlos m'a tuer" ("Carlos has killed me").
Stellantis has a hard time understanding the electric market. In 2025, we need EVs with a WLTP range of around 350 km. This will allow you to drive about 200/250 kms from 100 % to 10 % .and stay within a price range of 25000€ max and others around 20000 € max with a little less autonomy and this no longer te.ir side of these bonuses that pollute purchases . Return to the discounts and pros as before. And with quantity, electric car prices will reach those of combustion engines.
Autonomy isn't much use, even if we hear it over and over again, it's just an easy argument to save thermals.
For a city car, 200 km is more than enough, and for a highway car it's the recharging speed that counts.
If we do the math, for a 500 km journey, the difference between a long range (say 80 kwh) and a medium range (say 60 kwh) is 1 stop: 1 instead of 2.
For a long journey, 1000 km for example, the difference is also... 1 stop: 4 instead of 5.
total charging time remains the same, at around 1 hour for a 1000 km journey, i.e. less than the breaks.
All this fuss about autonomy, to avoid 1 stop!!!!
As for the price, driving an electric car costs €20,000 less for 200,000 km, to be deducted from the new price... electric cars are so much cheaper.
But nobody buys new anymore, it's either second-hand or lld. Once again, I don't know why we focus so much on the price of new, when this figure is useless in reality... Unless we're being pushed to think about it, to highlight the value of thermal?
What we need to understand is that the majority of Europeans aren't keen on electric cars, but the automakers keep forcing us to go electric because it suits them - better margins and fewer components.
As for the few internal combustion engines left, the choice is between the 1.2 puretoc or the 1.2 puremerde, and here too sales have plummeted, with more expensive cars with smaller, unreliable engines.