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EV cost burden pushing automakers to their limits, says Stellantis' CEO Tavares

DETROIT — Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares said external pressure on automakers to quickly shift to electric vehicles potentially threatens jobs and vehicle quality as producers struggle with EVs' higher costs. Governments and investors want car manufacturers to speed up the transition to electric vehicles, but the costs are "beyond the limits" of what the auto industry can sustain, Tavares said in an interview at the Reuters Next conference released Wednesday. "What has been decided is to impose on the automotive industry electrification that brings 50% additional costs against a conventional vehicle," he said. "There is no way we can transfer 50% of additional costs to the final consumer because most parts of the middle class will not be able to pay." Automakers could charge higher prices and sell fewer cars, or accept lower profit margins, Tavares said. Those paths both lead to cutbacks. Union leaders in Europe and North America have warned tens of thousands of jobs could be lost. Automakers need time for testing and ensuring that new technology will work, Tavares said. Pushing to speed that process up "is just going to be counter productive. It will lead to quality problems. It will lead to all sorts of problems," he said. Tavares said Stellantis is aiming to avoid cuts by boosting productivity at a pace far faster than industry norm. "Over the next five years we have to digest 10% productivity a year ... in an industry which is used to delivering 2 to 3% productivity" improvement, he said. "The future will tell us who is going to be able to digest this, and who will fail," Tavares said. "We are putting the industry on the limits." Electric vehicle costs are expected to fall, and analysts project that battery electric vehicles and combustion vehicles could reach cost parity during the second half of this decade. Like other automakers that earn profits from combustion vehicles, Stellantis is under pressure from both establishment automakers such as GM, Ford, VW and Hyundai, as well as start-ups such as Tesla and Rivian. The latter electric vehicle companies are far smaller in terms of vehicle sales and employment. But investors have given Tesla and Rivian higher market valuations than the owner of the highly profitable Jeep and Ram brands. That investor pressure is compounded by government policies aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions. The European Union, California and other jurisdictions have set goals to end sales of combustion vehicles by 2035.

2022 New York Auto Show Roundup | All the reveals, reviews, pictures

NEW YORK — In case you missed it, the New York Auto Show took place this year after being canceled in both 2020 and 2021 due to Covid. A lot of manufacturers showed up in force, but not everybody did. No matter, we were there, and we brought you news, photos and scoops from the floor throughout the show. All of our New York-related stories can be found at our central hub here, but if youÂ’d rather just get a small taste of everything in a quick and digestible format, keep scrolling. 2023 Kia Telluride and its new X-Pro trim Kia revealed the TellurideÂ’s first major refresh at New York, and it makes the three-row crossover a little bit more desirable without screwing up what we liked about it before. ThereÂ’s a new X-Line and X-Pro trim for someone who might want a little more off-road capability, and a number of tech improvements. Most notably, a newly-designed dash features new and bigger screens. 2023 Hyundai Palisade The TellurideÂ’s sister car from Hyundai was treated to a similar refresh. Like the Telluride, Hyundai gave the Palisade a slightly revised look, a new off-road trim (called XRT in the PalisadeÂ’s case), more tech inside and a new dash design with full-width air vents. If we had to choose, weÂ’re a little more impressed with the TellurideÂ’s refresh, as a number of us on staff actually prefer the pre-refresh Palisade styling over the new one. 2023 Jeep Wagoneer L and Grand Wagoneer L This one was inevitable. Jeep revealed the longer, roomier versions of its Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer in New York, and theyÂ’re designated with an “L” at the end of their names. Total length grows by a foot, and the wheelbase goes up by 7 inches versus the standard Wagoneer models. Jeep has essentially allocated all this extra room to the cargo area, as it now offers a staggering 44.2 cubic-feet of space behind the third row. Besides the L, Jeep announced that its new Hurricane inline-six engine would find its first home in the Wagoneer. Efficiency gets a small boost, and power is more than sufficient at either 420 horsepower (standard output) or 510 horsepower (high-output version) from the twin-turbo I-6. Chrysler Airflow Graphite Concept The Stellantis party continues with Chrysler and its slightly revised Airflow. Re-styled for the New York market after initially debuting at CES in Las Vegas, the Airflow Concept gets new paint, changed accent colors, a slightly changed interior design and a new interpretation of the Chrysler logo.

2018 Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrifoglio vs. 2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk: On-paper sibling rivalry

Pricing was revealed for the 2018 Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrifoglio, and with its $81,590 price tag, it's within range of yet another high-performance SUV from Fiat-Chrysler: the 2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk. The Hellcat-powered Jeep is more expensive than the Stelvio at $86,995, but depending on options, the price advantage might go either way. This left us wondering, how similar are these two high-powered SUVs? Besides sharing the same number of words in their very-long names, we took a look at some of their performance specs and put them in the spreadsheet below. As always, if you want to compare either of these with other speedy SUVs, be sure to try out our comparison tools. As far as outright speed, both SUVs are surprisingly close. The Trackhawk is just a bit quicker in a straight line, hitting 60 mph in just 3.5 seconds as opposed to the Alfa's 3.9. The Jeep's 180-mph top speed is also 3-mph quicker than the Alfa. But neither of these differences is especially huge. What makes this interesting is how different the paths each SUV takes to get to its results. The Trackhawk accomplishes the task with pure grunt. It has Dodge's Hellcat supercharged 6.2-liter V8 making 707 horsepower and 645 pound-feet of torque to overcome its hefty 5,363-pound body. The Alfa, on the other hand, makes do with less power and torque, 505 and 443, respectively, from its twin-turbocharged 2.9-liter V6. It has less weight, though. Exactly how much less we're not sure, since Alfa hasn't revealed that number, but a regular Stelvio weighs right around 4,000 pounds, so we would guess the weight is similar, possibly a little more. View 14 Photos The differences in how each SUV achieves its performance should result in pretty different driving characteristics, and probably different buyers. Each SUV's bragging points also indicates this. The Trackhawk boasts an impressive 11.6-second claimed quarter-mile time, something that American muscle car fans everywhere care about. The Alfa brags about how it's the fastest production SUV to lap the Nurburgring, something sure to impress fans of foreign cars and those that value handling over straight-line performance. So really, although these two SUVs have performance similarities, they're also very different, and the right one for you depends on what you value. View 29 Photos Also, as an afterthought, we wonder if the guys that attempted a Viper record at the 'Ring would be up for trying to break the Alfa time with the Jeep.