Stellantis Deploys Nearly 50 Rapid-Response Quality Teams as Jeep and Ram Lag US Rivals
Published on 10/02/2026 at 02:41 | Editorial boerse-global.de
Almost fifty cross-functional strike teams are now embedded inside Stellantis, part of a push to stamp out manufacturing defects and reliability complaints that have dogged the carmaker, particularly in North America.
CEO Antonio Filosa outlined the setup at the Automotive News Congress in Detroit. Each unit brings together engineers, quality specialists and production staff who work alongside suppliers to attack known faults in components and systems head-on, with speed as the guiding principle.
More engineers, earlier detection
The war rooms sit within a broader overhaul of how the company develops and builds its vehicles. Stellantis added over 2,000 engineers during 2025 to catch problems sooner and fix them before they reach customers. By 2028, the group wants to rank in the top quartile for quality across every segment and region where it sells vehicles.
Pressure for the change has come largely from customer satisfaction scores in the United States. Research by J.D. Power covering 2026 put Jeep at 267 problems per 100 vehicles and Ram at 216 — both worse than the US market average of 204.
Internal gauges point the right way
Stellantis says its own problem-tracking metrics have started to move. Early in the year, those measures improved by more than 50 percent in North America and by over 30 percent in Europe. The second quarter of 2026 continued the trend, with gains of 38 percent in North America and 24 percent in Europe.
Running parallel to the quality drive is an efficiency campaign. Under its Value Creation Program, 3,000 engineers are at work, with the aim of unlocking $7 billion in structural cost savings by 2028. From that year onward, measured against a 2025 baseline, the company is targeting annual cost reductions of €6 billion.
Financial targets held steady
On 30 September 2026, Filosa reaffirmed the manufacturer's guidance for the 2026 financial year: net revenue growth in the mid-single-digit percentage range, and an adjusted operating margin in the low single digits.
Free cash flow is expected to return to positive territory from 2027 and to exceed €3 billion in 2028.
Investors, meanwhile, have been pricing in the restructuring and the squeeze on margins. Stellantis shares closed at €3.90 on the Milan exchange on 30 September 2026 — a record low — bringing the decline since the start of the year to almost 60 percent.
