Why Stellantis’s CEO remains all-in on EVs as others retrench

livemint.com:

Stellantis Chief Executive Carlos Tavares in February made an intriguing announcement: The Chrysler-parent company would remain all-in on electric vehicles, even as competitors scale back and sales growth slows. “We’re going flat out," he told analysts on the company’s earnings call. The 65-year-old’s view on battery-powered vehicles is a drastic change from just a year ago, when he sounded the alarm on the high cost of EVs.

Now, Tavares is more bullish, driven by the company’s flexible vehicle platforms and that Stellantis’s EVs are already profitable. Tavares says the company is staying the course with an ambitious goal it staked out two years ago: to make 50% of Stellantis’s U.S. sales volume all-electric by 2030, buoyed by its popular Jeep SUV and Ram pickup brands.

A part-time race car driver, Tavares has always stood out among his peers as an executive who moves to the beat of his own drum. While Stellantis has sold electric models in Europe the past few years, the U.S. was put on the back burner for some time.

Company executives have said the delay gave them time to better understand what U.S. customers want—an advantage when competitors have spent billions of dollars to quickly introduce their first electric models to catch up to market leader Tesla, even as some drivers remain skeptical of the technology. Stellantis, born in 2021 through the merger of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and PSA Group, has 14 brands worldwide, including well-known American names such as Jeep and Ram as well as European makes Opel and Peugeot.