Before leaving office, Carlos Tavares clearly showed his confidence. A confidence that he placed in his company to be able to respect the new CO2 standards which will tighten in Europe in 2025. It must be said that according to the latest readings from Europe, most of the automobile groups present on the Old Continent were in the nails in 2024 and on track to avoid fines in 2025, with the exception of Mazda which was already navigating troubled waters last year. But wasn't Stellantis a bit too serene? A document published on the European Commission website sows confusion. And our colleagues at Automotive News, who have already been able to collect reactions from Stellantis, confirm that the strategy is changing.
Stellantis with Toyota and Tesla
The document shows the list of manufacturers who would partner with Tesla if pooling was validated. Mazda, Toyota, Ford, Subaru and the entire Stellantis group (with Leapmotor!) would join forces with the American brand to benefit from its precious CO2 credits. The document shows that Tesla is indeed the pool manager and that any additional request from another brand must be made before February 5, 2025 for final validation.
Stellantis, which could voluntarily limit the production of thermal engines in 2025 to encourage its customers to turn to electric vehicles, nevertheless already has an interesting mix of plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles. So why turn to Tesla? Stellantis explains that this collaboration “will contribute to achieving our European emissions targets by 2025 while optimizing our resources”. In short, avoid excessively restricting thermal engines which still represent the bulk of sales, particularly taking into account non-rechargeable hybrids.
A system that pays off big
Obviously, this pooling is not free and it still brings huge profits to Tesla. In 2023, Tesla earned more than $1.7 billion with this practice and in total, since the beginning of pooling, the manufacturer would have earned $9 billion. Quite a snub to the competition which is now turning to its American rival in terms of electric vehicles.
Currently, the list of pools is quite thin as most of the associations that were in place over the last three years have ended, meaning that most groups are now going it alone as electrified vehicles become more common. The Toyota/Subaru/Ford/Stellantis/Tesla association would therefore be the largest and one of the few major pools in Europe this year. Suzuki, which was due to turn to Volvo in 2025, has not yet published the documents to the European Commission.
