1983 Alpha Romeo Spider Veloce on 2040-cars

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Stellantis lays off salaried workers, cites uncertainty in EV transition

DETROIT — Jeep maker Stellantis is laying off about 400 white-collar workers in the U.S. as it deals with the transition from combustion engines to electric vehicles. The company formed in the 2021 merger between PSA Peugeot and Fiat Chrysler said the workers are mainly in engineering, technology and software at the headquarters and technical center in Auburn Hills, Michigan, north of Detroit. Affected workers were notified starting Friday morning. “As the auto industry continues to face unprecedented uncertainties and heightened competitive pressures around the world, Stellantis continues to make the appropriate structural decisions across the enterprise to improve efficiency and optimize our cost structure,” the company said in a prepared statement Friday. The cuts, effective March 31, amount to about 2% of Stellantis' U.S. workforce in engineering, technology and software, the statement said. Workers will get a separation package and transition help, the company said. “While we understand this is difficult news, these actions will better align resources while preserving the critical skills needed to protect our competitive advantage as we remain laser focused on implementing our EV product offensive,” the statement said. CEO Carlos Tavares repeatedly has said that electric vehicles cost 40% more to make than those that run on gasoline, and that the company will have to cut costs to make EVs affordable for the middle class. He has said the company is continually looking for ways to be more efficient. U.S. electric vehicle sales grew 47% last year to a record 1.19 million as EV market share rose from 5.8% in 2022 to 7.6%. But sales growth slowed toward the end of the year. In December, they rose 34%. Stellantis plans to launch 18 new electric vehicles this year, eight of those in North America, increasing its global EV offerings by 60%. But Tavares told reporters during earnings calls last month that “the job is not done” until prices on electric vehicles come down to the level of combustion engines — something that Chinese manufacturers are already able to achieve through lower labor costs. “The Chinese offensive is possibly the biggest risk that companies like Tesla and ourselves are facing right now,Â’Â’ Tavares told reporters. “We have to work very, very hard to make sure that we bring out consumers better offerings than the Chinese.

Stellantis launching at least 25 EVs for America by 2030

Stellantis has announced a wide-ranging plan for the company through 2030 covering everything from product to financials. The product plans are what really caught our attention, particularly for the surprise reveal of the first electric Jeep, as well as new teasers of the electric Ram 1500. But the company also provided more broad details on what we'll be seeing in the future including both electric cars and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. All of the plans are in service of the Stellantis goal of reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2038. On that way, it plans for all European vehicle sales and half of all American sales to be electric by 2030. It will launch 75 new electric vehicles by that year, and at least 25 of them will be coming to the U.S. The first of those electric cars will be the aforementioned Jeep in 2023, but many Stellantis models will follow close behind. The electric Ram ProMaster will launch in 2023 as well. In 2024, we'll see the electric Ram (and its plug-in hybrid counterpart), two more Jeeps (an off-road model and a family-oriented model) and the Dodge electric muscle car. We'll get a preview of the Dodge with a concept this year. Then in 2025, Chrysler will launch its electric car, likely based on the Airflow concept. Stellantis has previously announced Chrysler will be fully electric by 2028, and it further announced that Alfa Romeo and Maserati will be fully electric by 2030. Stellantis is also working on hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, mainly for commercial use. For the U.S., it plans on offering a large, ProMaster-size hydrogen van in 2025. That year or a little later, it also has plans for a hydrogen heavy-duty pickup truck, presumably Ram 2500 and 3500. Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares noted that among the benefits of hydrogen for large and commercial vehicles is being able to avoid compromising payload capacity, since hydrogen powertrains are lighter than giant batteries. Hydrogen filling times are quick relative to charging, too. The company will continue working on and offering advanced driver aids. This year it will offer hands-free cruise control like GM's Super Cruise and Ford's BlueCruise. In 2024, the company intends to introduce a system that is hands-free and won't require the driver to be watching it the entire time. The technology is being developed alongside BMW. These are, of course, broad plans, and they could change as time goes on. Expect more details as we get closer to individual product releases.

Scrapyard Gem: 1999 Alfa Romeo 166, Screwball Rally Edition

SHERBURN-IN-ELMET, England — Alfa Romeo took a break from selling new cars in the United States after 1995, when the final Spider Veloces and 164s were sold here. That beat Fiat and Lancia (both of which departed after 1982), but still deprived us of the Alfa 164's handsome successor: the 166. The easiest way to find discarded 166s is to cross the Atlantic, so that's what I did recently. I've been spending a lot of time in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg in recent years, being the descendant of immigrants from that tiny but proud nation, and there are still quite a few 166s prowling the streets of Luxembourg City. Despite their reputation for unreliability and horrifically rapid depreciation, the 166 looks so good that I remain tempted to ship one home. The facelifted model in the photo above had its debut as a 2003 model and thus won't be legal in the United States until 2028, but the first-year '99s shouldn't raise any U.S. Customs eyebrows when you pick one up at your local port. I was hoping to shoot plenty of interesting Italian iron during my trip to the scrapyards of Yorkshire in January, so I headed over to Sherburn Motor Spares, located on the very land in Sherburn-in-Elmet where the famous Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers of Bismarck-crippling fame were built. This yard specialises in Italian and French cars; it's what we'd call a dismantler in the United States, so customers aren't allowed to pull their own parts unless they get permission beforehand. There's a nice little breakfast joint located just out front, which was welcome on a below-freezing Yorkshire morning, and the employees are very friendly (though a bit difficult to understand if you come from anywhere else in the English-speaking world). Inside, you'll find plenty of Alfa Romeos, Fiats, Peugeots, Citroens, Renaults and even a few Toyota MR2s; I spotted an extremely rare Alfa Romeo Brera S, which was one of a mere 500 built. Cars rust quickly and inspections are rigorous in England, so I didn't see many machines built prior to our current century. Well back in one of the rows, however, was this first-year 166 done up in some kind of racing livery. The cars were packed and stacked so closely that I wasn't able to get great photos of this car, but Sherburn Motor Spares has included some pre-stacking photos in their eBay store.