Emanuele CappellanoChief Operating Officer (COO) of Stellantis South America confirmed that it will manufacture the new generation of its SUV-B Peugeot 2008 starting in the second half of this year at its Palomar plant, where the hatchback is currently produced 208 and the van Partner Of the brand. This confirms the Infobae preview for August 10, 2023 when it was pointed out that “in a short time the lion brand’s commitment to SUVs could be known with the local manufacture of a new model.”
This project required a new investment of USD 270 millionthe majority already executed, which is framed within a total context of disbursements of USD 320 million made in recent years. But in addition, Cappellano announced an investment plan for the country for the period 2025-2030 of another USD 400 million that will be destined for new “products, platforms and technologies”.
The COO of Italian origin did not want to delve into the matter in a subsequent press conference in which Infobae participated. It is estimated that a good part of this investment would be allocated to manufacturing in the Ferreyra plant, Córdobafrom the medium pick-up Fiat Titanorecently presented in Brazil, and currently being assembled in Uruguay.
In the Mediterranean plant, Stellantis only produces the Fiat Cronosand the expansion of production capacity is possible for the brand to enter the highest segment of pickup trucks that today successfully occupies the low and medium ranges with Strada and Toro. When asked a specific question, Cappellano simply responded that “we are not going to give details at the moment. Is a segment that the company wants to keep alive and with leadership”which somehow allows us to infer that the rumors are well founded.
Regarding whether the investments have more to do with a strategic plan or the impossibility of transferring dollars abroad, the Stellantis executive acknowledged that there is a combination of things. “It is given for a strategic decision and not being able to transfer money. Having liquidity helps make these types of investment decisions, but our investments are all related to long-term goals,” she said.
When asked about Infobae Regarding the local context, the executive said: “We closely follow what is happening in Argentina, trying to support with investments. I think the situation is stabilizing. It is a complex moment, there was strong disorganization at the end of last year, but we believe that the second semester will be better.”
Martín Zuppi, General Director of Stellantis Argentina and also president of Adefa, the association that brings together local terminals, also spoke about the local context.
“When we talk about the competitiveness of the industry we always look at the exchange rate, but Argentina has a very large tax burden. Today, we export 22% taxes, when that figure is 7% in Brazil and Mexico does not export taxes. “We are waiting for a rearrangement of the tax burden,” he said.
According to Zuppi, the local market is very far from reaching one million annual sales, a figure that was almost achieved in 2017, when 900,942 units were sold. He believes that A “healthy” market would be around 600,000 vehicles. “The current 300,000 is low. This first quarter the drop was 30% and we are seeing some increase for the second semester, but with fewer units than in 2023 in the annual total. In 2025 there may be a recovery,” he expressed. Regarding the participation of Stellantis with its brands in total Argentine automotive production by 2024, he estimated that the figure will be around 160,000 units.
The General Director of Stellantis Argentina hopes that rates continue to fall so that it begins to emerge more credit to finance consumptiondoes not see a “bidding war” in the short term in the market and believes that to once again have a $12,000 car, we must talk about competitiveness and taxes, and also the development of the supplier industry.
“With such short margins The bidding war ends quickly. We do not have margins of 20 points and this year they will be even shorter than last year,” Zuppi highlighted, pointing out something that other executives have also expressed in recent weeks to Infobae regarding the current policy of bonuses and discounts that are seen in the market and that have contributed strongly to the partial sales numbers for April being positive.
For the local executive, who as a reference for the sector met with the minister Luis Caputo days ago, the urgent problems of the sector are the issues of tax burden to be able to exportfinish normalizing the payment of imports, resolve the remaining commercial debt (which affects the terminals but also their suppliers), achieve an “active and logical” financial market to sell better in the domestic market, and the laws of investments.
“Which is the most urgent of all of those?” this media asked.
“The issue of the tax burden, because it is also advantageous for clients. All the good that can happen to us is people buy cars in a simple way, cheaper and with more suitable financial markets. If that happens we will do better. If people do not have a logical quota, their salary is not recovered, or there are expensive cars due to taxes, it does not solve anything for us.”
