Good morning! It’s Monday, January 6, and this is The Morning Shift, your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from around the world, in one place. Here are the important stories you need to know.
1st Gear: Stellantis Sales Down As Every American Brand Drops
The past year was rough for Stellantis after it faced revolt from dealers, calls to sell off its historic brands and the sudden departure of its CEO. Those struggles at the top trickled down to its sales, and it’s now emerged that almost every brand it offers in North America saw deliveries plummet over 2024… except for Fiat.
Stellantis released its sales for the final quarter of 2024 and the full year last week, and reported that deliveries across the country were down by almost 15 percent, reports Automotive News. The drop was driven by falling demand for the likes of Dodge and Ram, but deliveries were down almost across the board:
The automaker’s 2024 U.S. sales fell 15 percent overall as key models such as the Jeep Wrangler and Grand Cherokee and Ram’s pickups lost ground. The company also missed volume from discontinued models, including the Jeep Renegade and Cherokee, Dodge’s Challenger, the previous-generation Charger and the Chrysler 300.
The brand will look to recover some of those lost sales with the new electric Dodge Charger Daytona that’s rolling out now and the gasoline-powered Charger Sixpack variants coming later in the year. Jeep will replace the Cherokee with a hybrid crossover in 2025.
Jeep’s U.S. sales decreased for the sixth consecutive year, while Ram deliveries declined for the third year in a row.
Sales were also down at Chrysler, which fell by almost seven percent over 2024 despite an uptick in fortunes towards the end of the year. Alfa Romeo also saw U.S. sales drop by more than 18 percent over the course of the year and Maserati deliveries were down four percent over the past 12 months.
There was one beacon of hope among Stellantis’ latest delivery numbers, and that was Fiat. The plucky Italian brand kicked off 2024 with the release of its new 500 EV here in America and it appears to be working wonders for the brand.
Over the course of the year, Fiat sales were up by more than 250 percent over 2024 after the brand sold 1,528 EVs over the course of the year. Sure, that won’t make up for the almost 100,000 fewer cars that Ram sold over 2024, but if you’re Stellantis you’ve got to take the little wins right now.
2nd Gear: Elon Musks Political Meddling Is ‘Worrying’ World Leaders
It’s going to be a big year for Elon Musk as he’s set to see his best buddy take charge of the White House, will have his own made-up department to play government in and I guess he might sell a car or two as well. Politics is clearly the name of the game for the Tesla boss in 2025, and that has a few other world leaders worried.
Musk spent most of 2024 on the campaign trail with president elect Donald Trump, who rewarded this loyalty with a role leading a made-up department looking into efficiency in the U.S. government. Since Trump won the election, Musk has increasingly shifted his views to overseas governments, most notably across Europe.
In the past week alone, Musk platformed a far-right party in Germany, called for the release of British far-right activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon and pushed for new leadership at the UK’s right-wing Reform Party. These actions have concerned other global leaders, as Reuters reports:
Norway’s prime minister finds it worrying that billionaire Elon Musk is involving himself in the political issues of countries outside the United States.
“I find it worrying that a man with enormous access to social media and huge economic resources involves himself so directly in the internal affairs of other countries,” Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere told Norwegian public broadcaster NRK on Monday.
“This is not the way things should be between democracies and allies.”
Stoere is right to be concerned about the power Musk now holds through his unwavering support for Trump. In the days that followed the “Home Alone 2” actor’s victory in the election, it emerged that several policies could be enacted that greatly benefit Musk’s businesses, including a cut on EV incentives and relaxed rules on the rollout of self-driving cars.
With Musk now potentially considering a huge donation to right-wing parties in the UK and supporting organizations in Germany as well, is he set to try and play the same moves across the pond?
3rd Gear: Americans Want Cheap Cars
If Stellantis wants a way to turn around its struggling sales, then this next report may offer some advice for the struggling automaker as it turns out cheap cars are selling really, really well right now. Who’d have thought that in a world where everything is getting more expensive, budget cars could succeed!
Sales of entry level models from the likes of Nissan, Kia and Mitsubishi reportedly “exploded” in 2024, reports Motor1. Cheaper models posted double-digit gains over the course of the year as “cheap cars had a huge year in 2024,” reports the site:
Nissan had some of the biggest jumps. The brand sold 152,659 Sentras and 42,589 Versas in 2024, representing increases of 39.8 and 71.7 percent respectively. Even in the middle of a changeover year, Nissan still moved 77,356 examples of the Kicks crossover—a 15.8 percent increase.
Even with the Mirage on the way out, Mitsubishi moved a modest 29,766 examples of the tiny economy car in 2024. That marks a sizable 125.2 percent increase. Sales of the Outlander Sport were up just slightly compared to last year, too.
At Kia, the arrival of a new compact sedan is already bearing fruit. The automaker sold 139,778 examples of the K4 and Forte, marking a 12.8 percent increase over the previous year. Sales on the affordable SUV side were less successful for Kia, admittedly, with the Soul, Seltos, and Niro all dropping slightly from 2023.
The growth was seen across the cheaper end of the automotive spectrum, with budget-friendly SUVs on the rise and even cheap pickups finding room to grow. Ford saw sales of the Maverick grow by almost 40 percent and, even at a struggling Jeep, deliveries of its cheapest model, the Compass, were up 16 percent.
Cheaper cars like these now pack in better features, nicer interiors and more economical motors than ever before, so it should come as no surprise that they are selling like hot cakes. Maybe this will be the turning point that puts an end to the ever-rising average cost of a new car in America.
4th Gear: New York Finally Launched Congestion pricing
Be honest, what did you think would happen first: Tesla would have a real autonomous taxi on the road or New York would implement congestion pricing? Well, New York won this race over the weekend when congestion pricing in America’s busiest city finally came into force.
The charge means it’ll cost motorists $9 to enter certain parts of Manhattan during peak hours, making it roughly half the price of rival schemes in cities like London. Still, this is progress as New York is now the first U.S. city to implement such a charge, as Bloomberg explains:
The first initiative of its kind in the US, congestion pricing promises to bring $15 billion to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the agency that runs the city’s century-old subway and commuter-rail lines, for desperately needed upgrades.
“We’re doing something to deal with the reality of the way that congestion is hurting our city and costing people time and money, that we’re protecting the interests of New Yorkers from a health standpoint,” Janno Lieber, the MTA’s chief executive officer, said late Friday after a judge ruled against New Jersey’s request to stop the program from starting on Sunday.
The charge finally came into force after months of back and forth between politicians, which even went as far as an indefinite pause on the program while the election was ongoing.
Even a last-ditch attempt to derail the scheme by New Jersey failed to get off the ground. But with Trump taking office in a matter of days, the incoming president could yet attempt to overturn a move that he previously branded a “regressive tax,” adds Bloomberg.
