Stellantis is apparently at war with its own quality problems. The automaker has set up nearly 50 so-called “quality war rooms” and hired thousands of engineers to address lingering issues, with CEO Antonio Filosa promising the problems are being fixed “very, very, very quickly.” That is certainly one way of doing quality control.
Speaking at the Automotive News Congress in Detroit, Filosa acknowledged that Stellantis has had quality problems and said the company is attacking them with an unusually large-scale effort. Rather than letting issues work their way through the usual corporate machinery, the company has created dedicated war rooms to identify and fix problems.
And yes, they're actually called quality war rooms. This isn't me trying to make the story sound more dramatic than it is. More than 2,000 engineers have joined the effort, with teams working on specific problems across Stellantis' numerous brands and vehicles. The idea is to find and fix issues faster and prevent them from reaching customers in the first place.
Filosa's word choice highlights the urgency of addressing the quality problems “very, very, very quickly.” That's three “verys,” which is either an impressive commitment to speed or the automotive equivalent of hitting the snooze button three times before finally rolling out of bed. Hopefully, Stellantis won't need a fourth “very” to convince everyone that the alarm has actually gone off.
Stellantis Is Making Quality A Top Priority
Stellantis hasn't provided a detailed breakdown of all 50 rooms or the specific problems being tackled in each one. Still, the sheer numbers show how seriously the company is taking quality. Filosa is essentially trying to make quality a company-wide priority rather than something that gets addressed after a vehicle reaches the customer.
It's also an interesting change in tone. Automakers love talking about cutting-edge technology, software-defined vehicles, electrification, artificial intelligence, and whatever the latest buzzword is. Stellantis is currently talking about something considerably less glamorous: making sure its cars work properly.
Sometimes the future of the automobile is apparently a room full of engineers trying to figure out why the present one keeps throwing warning lights.
The Results Should Start Showing In 2028
Filosa has also set a clear deadline for 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. In other words, Stellantis doesn't just want to improve; it wants its brands to rank in the top 25 percent for quality across every segment and market where it competes within only two years.
That gives those 50 quality war rooms a rather firm deadline. Now comes the difficult part: actually making it happen. Because if Stellantis really needs 50 war rooms to fight its quality problems, let's hope the quality problems don't decide to open a 51st.
Stellantis Has A Huge Portfolio To Bring Up To Standard
Stellantis' quality crusade also reinforces a point we made recently: automakers need to slow down and prioritize reliability rather than constantly racing to add more technology, features, and complexity. The challenge is arguably even greater for Stellantis because it has so many brands competing across a huge number of segments and markets, each with their own products, powertrains, and customers. Sure, there’s a lot of parts-bin sharing, but managing an automotive juggernaut of this scale isn't easy.
Call me naive, but ideally, automakers wouldn't need an army of engineers to clean up problems that could have been avoided by taking a little more time before launching a vehicle. As someone who puts reliability at the forefront when buying a car, I believe the best way for automakers to deliver reliable products is to stop treating the launch date as more important than getting the car right in the first place.
