MILAN (Reuters) – Stellantis will assemble the new Jeep Compass, one of the group’s best-selling cars in Europe, in Melfi, the fifth model assigned to the carmaker’s Italian plant, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday.
The new model will be derived from the Compass SUV, which the third-largest automaker by turnover currently produces at Melfi, one of its main assembly sites in Italy.
The group born of the merger between PSA and FCA announced this week its intention to introduce the production of an unspecified fifth vehicle on the spot, after a meeting between the general manager Carlos Tavares and the Italian Minister of Industry Adolfo Urso, dedicated to the possible development of the group’s production in Italy.
After the meeting, the 14-brand manufacturer announced that the cars produced at Melfi would be “premium high-value models for foreign brands, plus an Italian brand”, all based on the new STLA Medium platform intended for mid-size models. medium with electric priority, presented last week.
The new Jeep Compass will join four other new models promised to Melfi but not yet officially announced.
It could be two models for DS, the premium brand of the ex-PSA, one for the German brand Opel and one for the Italian Lancia.
According to an industry source, the DS would be an electric SUV larger than the current DS7.
Stellantis is expected to officially unveil the models attributed to Melfi at the end of the month, as part of a broader deal it is working on with the Italian government, one of the people familiar with the matter said.
Production of these new models based on the STLA Medium architecture should begin in 2024.
“To saturate all the factories in Italy, we cannot do it only with Fiat (…) Fiat is not enough if we want to increase production in Italy to one million (vehicles per year),” explained this week to Reuters Olivier François, general manager of the brand.
“But we must also have costs in Italy (…) which are competitive, and I have confidence in the Italian government, it will help us in this direction”, he added.
Stellantis, which sold around six million vehicles worldwide last year, also produces the Jeep Renegade and the Fiat 500X at the Melfi site.
The manufacturer must reconcile in Europe its industrial imperatives and profitability with the demands of political leaders and employee representatives on the domiciliation of models in its main countries.
To the French Minister for the Economy Bruno Le Maire, who, for example, is calling for the relocation to France of the electric Peugeot 208, which had left for Spain, Stellantis replies that it has undertaken to produce 12 models of electric vehicles with high added value in the hexagon.
(Report Giulio Piovaccari, with Gilles Guillaume in Paris, edited by Kate Entringer)
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