In the wake of his first Investor Day as CEO, Antonio Filosa already presents two cornerstone deals of his strategic turnaround plan: one plans to build Voyah models at the French Citroën factory in Rennes, the other opens the door to a Jeep for the US, developed and built together with Land Rover.
Stellantis needs a renaissance. The company is engulfed by too many and too few differentiating brands, a customer exit in Europe, and losses that have mounted to €2.3 billion during the first half of the year. Filosa has worked on a massive turnaround plan, the first details of which are slowly emerging.
Memorandum of Understanding
It seems that where the Tavares era was defined by brutal cost-cutting and margin maximization, the Filosa era appears to be defined by something different: partnership. On both sides of the Atlantic, Stellantis is betting that it cannot compete alone. In a way, this should be expected from independent small car companies that need scale. But apparently, partners Dongfeng and JLR have something to offer that the fourteen brands under the Stellantis umbrella can not. That, in itself, says something about the group’s true problem.
The more structurally significant of the two confirmed deals involves Stellantis’s 34-year Chinese partner, Dongfeng Motor. The two companies agreed to build Peugeots and Jeeps in China for export, but they have now signed a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to create a new, Stellantis-led European joint venture. It is split 51/49 in Stellantis’s favor and will cover sales, distribution, manufacturing, purchasing, and engineering of Dongfeng’s new energy vehicles in designated European markets.
Voyahs from Rennes
The centerpiece of that joint venture is Dongfeng’s premium EV brand, Voyah. Already available in Europe as an import, Voyah would become locally manufactured under the arrangement. Production would take place at the Stellantis plant in Rennes, a facility that once produced more than 400,000 vehicles annually but today primarily assembles the Citroen C5 Aircross, leaving it seriously underutilized.
The industrial logic is hard to argue with: European plants struggle with overcapacity, and Chinese brands need ‘made in Europe’ to sidestep the EU’s import tariffs. Meanwhile, European brands can learn a thing or two about modern manufacturing from the Chinese. The first candidate for the French Voyah is widely reported to be the SUV Courage, priced at the premium end of the market.
But the joint venture is far more than a manufacturing deal. Stellantis is explicitly seeking access to Dongfeng’s cost-competitive Chinese NEV supply chain. “We will give our customers an even greater choice of competitive products and pricing,” Filosa said in the official announcement. It seems the new CEO wants to repeat the exemplary partnership with Chinese Leapmotor, which has been a success for both parties.
Unexpected tie-up with Land Rover
If the Dongfeng deal is about European tariffs, the less expected deal between Stellantis and Land Rover is about doing something comparable in North America: using Stellantis’s existing US manufacturing footprint to hedge a British luxury brand from Trump’s 25% tariff on imported vehicles.
Also, in this case, both car makers have signed a non-binding MoU to explore product development and technology collaboration specifically for the US market. Both sides stress the exploratory nature of the agreement, but the commercial pressure behind it is anything but subtle. Every Range Rover, Defender, and Discovery sold in the United States today is shipped from the UK, leaving JLR with an import tariff bill reported at 490 million euros for the current financial year alone.
For Stellantis, the logic is symmetrical to France. Its U.S. factories are not running at full capacity. A production agreement with JLR would generate revenue from underutilized assets.
Also, the Land Rover models are prestigious and high-margin, and not in direct overlap with Jeep vehicles. Developing an SUV together would make it easy to market to different customer pools. Easier than distinguishing between a Corsa, 500, Ypsilon, 208, and C3, to name but one example within the Stellantis constellation…
Expanding exîsting partnerships
In an avalanche of press releases, Stellantis also made public that Stellantis and Qualcomm technologies announced an expansion of their multi-year technology collaboration. Next-generation Stellantis vehicles will be powered by Qualcomm Technologies’ Snapdragon Digital Chassis Driver Assistance.
The expanded collaboration integrates Snapdragon Digital chassis solutions with STLA Brain, Stellantis’ electronic and software platform, enhancing cockpit, connectivity, and advanced driver assistance (ADAS) performance.
On the other hand, Stellantis and Applied Intuition are also expanding their collaboration to advance vehicle software and enhance the customer experience. The collaboration is intended to accelerate software development, simulation, validation, and deployment across core vehicle systems.
