Stellantis, CNBC, Bloomberg, and the Wall Street Journal contributed to this report.
Auto giant Stellantis swung to a historic loss on Thursday, blaming a costly course correction in its electric-vehicle play and calling 2025 a year of reset.
The headline: a €22.3 billion net loss for the full year, driven mostly by €25.4 billion in one-off write-downs as the company pulled back on parts of its EV strategy. That’s not a typo. It’s the first annual loss in the group’s history, and it stings.
Stellantis owns a lineup you actually know: Jeep, Dodge, Fiat, Chrysler and Peugeot among them. The message from the top was blunt. CEO Antonio Filosa said the results “reflect the cost of over-estimating the pace of the energy transition,” and that the company is resetting to give customers more freedom to choose between electric, hybrid and internal-combustion models.
A few quick numbers to chew on: adjusted operating loss hit €842 million for 2025, industrial free cash flow was negative (about €4.5 billion), and the stock slid on the news — Milan-listed shares dipped further, leaving the name down more than 30% year-to-date.
Why the giant hit the brakes? Automakers everywhere are rethinking how fast to pivot to battery-only lineups after a wave of aggressive EV bets. Rivals such as GM, Ford and Honda have also taken hits recently, booking billions in charges as they recalibrate. Stellantis’ reset included product-plan changes, supply-chain cleanups and workforce moves — and about €6.5 billion of the charges are actual cash payments that will hit over the next several years.
Still, it wasn’t all doom. The second half of 2025 showed signs of life: shipments rose to 2.8 million units and H2 net revenues jumped 10% versus the prior year. Management pointed to improved execution on new product launches, better quality metrics and early signs of top-line recovery. Stellantis also said it expects to see industrial free cash flow turn positive in 2027.
To shore up the balance sheet the board suspended the 2026 dividend and authorized up to €5 billion of hybrid bonds. That’s defensive housekeeping — painful for income investors, but intended to keep flexibility while the company pivots.
Management isn’t backing off guidance. Stellantis reiterated its 2026 outlook: mid-single-digit net-revenue growth and a low-single-digit adjusted operating margin, with the aim of sequential improvement through the year. Translation: still in turnaround mode, but management wants investors to know the plan is intact.
The strategic swing boils down to this: Stellantis says it over-estimated how fast customers and regulators would force a wholesale shift to EVs. Now the company is balancing electrification with hybrids and internal-combustion options — betting that giving buyers choice will win more sales than an all-electric push that’s ahead of demand.
That’s a defensible call. But it’s also expensive. Write-downs like these wipe out profits in a hurry and raise hard questions about capital allocation, product timing and whether the company can convert improving operational metrics into steady cash flow.
Investors will be watching a few clear signals: margin improvement through 2026, progress toward that 2027 free-cash-flow inflection, and whether the new product wave actually moves metal in North America and Europe. For now, Stellantis is admitting a big misread and paying for it. The bet is that the reset buys time — and a path back to profit — without sacrificing market share.
Stellantis got ahead of itself on EVs, wrote down the overhang, and is pivoting back toward “freedom of choice.” It’s a bruising course change, but one the company says is necessary to steady the ship.
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