Stellantis quality problems: Huge, bold 2,000-engineer fix
Stellantis CEO Antonio Filosa said Wednesday, Sept. 30, that the automaker is tackling Stellantis quality problems with nearly 50 dedicated “quality war rooms” and more than 2,000 engineers. Speaking at an Automotive News event in Detroit, Filosa acknowledged the issues and said they are being fixed “very, very, very quickly,” Motor1 reported, citing Automotive News.
How the war rooms tackle Stellantis quality problems
Each war room is a dedicated team assigned to specific defects across the company’s many brands and vehicles, according to Motor1. Instead of routing fixes through normal corporate channels, the teams are meant to move faster and catch problems before vehicles reach customers.
Stellantis has not said which models or specific defects each room is working on.
The 2028 target
Filosa put a firm date on the turnaround. “We have a target to get, in 2028, first quartile in quality with all the segments and markets where we compete, and we will get there,” he said, per Motor1.
First quartile means ranking in the top 25 percent for quality in every segment and market where Stellantis sells vehicles. That gives the war rooms roughly two years to show results.
Why quality matters now
The quality push comes during a rough stretch for the parent company of Jeep, Ram, Dodge and Chrysler. In February, The Verge reported that on top of a $26.5 billion hit tied to its electric vehicle bets, Stellantis booked a separate $16.7 billion charge for warranty and recall claims. Those claims included a recall of about 320,000 Jeep 4xe plug-in hybrids over battery fire risk. Total Apex previously covered the expanded Jeep plug-in hybrid recall and a Jeep engine debris recall.
The company’s U.S. shares closed at an all-time low Tuesday and slipped another 1.58 percent Wednesday to $4.36, CNBC reported. At the same Detroit event, Filosa reconfirmed the company’s 2026 financial guidance.
Filosa, who became CEO in June 2025, replaced Carlos Tavares, who resigned in December 2024 as the company’s results slumped. In May 2026, Filosa unveiled a strategic plan, FaSTLAne 2030, that calls for about 60 billion euros (roughly $70 billion) in investment and 60 new models by 2030, Euronews reported. Fixing Stellantis quality problems is central to winning back buyers for those new models.
Wall Street pressure
Investors are watching whether Stellantis quality problems ease. The stock has lost roughly 60 percent of its value so far this year and is on pace for its worst annual showing since Fiat Chrysler and PSA Groupe merged to form Stellantis in January 2021, according to CNBC. In an investor note Tuesday, RBC Capital Markets analyst Tom Narayan called a breakup “a plausible longer-term scenario,” CNBC reported.
Filosa told the Detroit audience the company is “completely committed” to its 2026 forecast of a mid-single-digit percentage increase in net revenue and a low-single-digit adjusted operating margin. He also reaffirmed goals of positive free cash flow in 2027 and more than 3 billion euros ($3.4 billion) of free cash flow in 2028.
“The mantra of the reset is around freedom of choice,” Filosa said, per CNBC. “It’s around listening more to the customer.” Under the May plan, Stellantis also aims to expand its lineup of models priced below $40,000 from two to nine, Euronews reported.
What’s next
Stellantis has not released details on which Stellantis quality problems each war room is addressing. To hit its 2028 goal, the company will need to show measurable gains in warranty claims, recall rates and independent quality rankings. For more on the automaker’s past recalls, see our report on the Ram ProMaster and Dodge Journey recall.
Reporting from Motor1, CNBC, The Verge, Euronews and MotorTrend contributed to this story.