Italy’s far-right government may buy a stake in Stellantis

Stellantis has been at odds with the Italian government for its lack of support in EV adoption and not backing home-grown brands Fiat and Alfa Romeo. But now Italy says it is open to buying a stake in Stellantis, Reuters reports, using the same model France uses for its beloved Renault.

Italy has some of the oldest, most polluting cars in Europe, with some of the lowest EV adoption rates in Europe. The government, however, aims to change that – not that it has much of a choice since the EU’s climate plan should force a change regardless. Italy is looking to invest $1 billion to encourage people to ditch their gas- or diesel-burning cars for electric ones – but this hasn’t happened yet and still needs to go through the approval process. And Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares says this just isn’t good enough.

Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, of the ultra-conservative populist party Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy), has in turn criticized Stellantis for moving its production to lower-cost countries, pushing Italian workers out of the fray, as the auto industry struggles to adapt to EVs, Reuters reports. Italy’s industry minister Adolfo Urso has said that Italy might follow the French model by taking a majority stake in Stellantis.

Renault, of course, has been facing its own issues and just canceled the much-hyped IPO of its EV startup Ampere, which hasn’t been lost on Tarvares. While Stellantis can’t in any way make moves to take over Renault due to France’s influence, Tavares told Automotive News Europe that the rush to cheaper EVs will be a  “bloodbath,” and that when Renault stumbles, he sees it as an opportunity. It’s all getting very Darwinian.

The fact, too, that France holds a 6% stake in Stellantis, and has representatives on the company’s board of directors, has been a sore point for Italy, which has no stake and no representatives.

Stellantis’s Tavares has said that Italy has spent so little money on EV adoption that it is falling behind, and the stakes are high. He told Automotive News Europe: “The consequence is that we are losing manufacturing products in Italy that we could manufacture. We already wasted nine months of production, of additional production in Mirafiori,” the plant in Turin, Italy, which produces the Fiat 500e.

Meanwhile, Stellantis says that it has seen little government support in backing its homegrown EVs, namely the Fiat 500 e. The Mirafiori plant recently saw a round of temporary layoffs due to a “sluggish demand.”

Plus, the Italian government wants Stellantis to bump up its annual production in Italy to 1 million vehicles, from around 750,000 last year, to which the automaker has reportedly agreed. But to make that happen, something will need to happen.