Jeep, Ram owner is launching affordable EVs next year
Stellantis, the parent company behind Jeep, Ram, Dodge, and 11 others, is launching several new affordable EVs in 2024. The automaker aims to reduce prices on electric models to take on industry leaders like Tesla and incoming Chinese EV makers.
Jeep owner takes stake in Leapmotor
Days after announcing it will invest $1.6 billion (€1.5 billion) in Chinese EV maker Leapmotor, Jeep owners Stellantis explained its plans to launch a new affordable EV brand.
Through a new joint venture, Stellantis and Leapmotor will aim the EV brand at “cost-conscious” buyers that “want the best technology in their products,” CFO Natalie Knight explained on the company’s Q3 earnings call.
Stellantis is taking a roughly 20% stake in Leapmotor to leverage its EV technology to bring “affordable mobility solutions to global customers.”
Knight said the new electric car company will first launch in Europe, followed by other global markets. Jeep parent company Stellantis will own 51% of the new EV brand as it looks to meet its Dare Forward 2030 targets with a cost-efficient ecosystem.
New affordable EVs coming next year
Stellantis says the new EV brand is “complimentary” to Stellantis’ current tech and products. The 15th brand will add another dimension to Stellantis’ portfolio as it looks to compete in the EV era.
Knight said the new company will attract customers with affordable EVs and advanced tech offerings. In fact, the company’s CFO explained that Stellantis is excited to learn from a leading Chinese EV maker.
The partnership will give Stellantis insights into “what best in class looks like.” Stellantis will learn more about the leading EV market and the price differences between Chinese and Western automakers.
Knight added that “markets will do what they do,” but Stellantis is focused on speed and agility to “become a winner in the EV space.”
The comments come two weeks after Stellantis launched the low-cost Citroen e-C3 electric car. Stellantis calls the e-C3 “the first European affordable electric car,” starting at $24,500 (€23,000).
The new e-C3 “signals a new chapter” for the Citroen brand as it looks to tackle Europe’s growing need for affordable EVs.
Powered by a 44 kWh LFP battery, the electric car has up to 199 miles (320 km) WLTP range. As a first, the e-C3 will use a version of Stellantis’ “Smart Car ” platform. The platform is currently used in India, enabling lower prices.
Knight explained the new e-C3 is “so important to us” as an affordable, accessible electric option. The financial leader added Stellantis’ “platform thinking” is enabling lower costs.
Stellantis released its Q3 earnings Tuesday, showing 37% growth in global EV sales. The increase was led by the new Jeep Avenger, Citroen Ami, Peugeot E-208, and Fiat New 500e.
The automaker’s first all-electric models will launch in the US next year, including the first EVs from Jeep and Ram. Ram’s 1500 REV electric truck and the Jeep Recon and Wagoneer S will hit the US market next year.
Electrek’s Take
As electric vehicle share continues rising in key auto markets globally, price is becoming a primary focus.
Global EV leaders, including Tesla and BYD, have cut prices all year, forcing other automakers to follow suit. Although several automakers, including Ford and GM, have delayed key EV targets, others are doubling down as they look toward the future.
Producing cheap EVs is one thing, but building electric cars at a low cost (profitably) that offers value to customers is a winning strategy.
However, Stellantis will need to get a move on. The company is already behind in North America, and Chinese EV makers are quickly gaining market share in Europe and overseas. The decision to partner with Leapmotor will likely pay off. Stellantis can now learn the ins and outs from a leader in the biggest EV market globally. More importantly, it can access its tech.
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Environment
Elon Musk Tapped to Lead New ‘DOGE’ Department—Despite the Government Already Having One for Efficiency
Tesla CEO Elon Musk is to officially join Trump’s administration as the co-head of the new US Department of Government Efficiency – a second federal department with the goal of making government spending more efficient.
You can’t get more ironic than that.
Throughout the elections, Musk, who is already CEO of Tesla, and SpaceX, a well as the defacto head of X, xAI, Neuralink, and the Boring Company, has been floating the idea to add to his workload by joining the Trump’s administration to lead a new department aimed at making the federal government more efficient.
He has been calling it the “Department of Government Efficiency”, which spells out ‘DOGE’, a meme that Musk appears to enjoy.
Well, now Trump appears to want to be going through with this idea.
He announced the new department and Musk as head, along with Vivek Ramaswamy, in a statement today:
I am pleased to announce that the Great Elon Musk, working in conjunction with American Patriot Vivek Ramaswamy, will lead the Department of Government Efficiency (“DOGE”). Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies – Essential to the “Save America” Movement. “This will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in Government waste, which is a lot of people!” stated Mr. Musk.
What’s most ironic is that there’s already a federal department with the goal of cutting government waste and ensuring efficiency: the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
The GAO’s main objectives are:
- auditing agency operations to determine whether federal funds are being spent efficiently and effectively;
- investigating allegations of illegal and improper activities;
- reporting on how well government programs and policies are meeting their objectives;
- performing policy analyses and outlining options for congressional consideration;
- issuing legal decisions and opinions;
- advising Congress and the heads of executive agencies about ways to make government more efficient and effective
It sounds similar to what Musk described when talking about his DOGE, but Trump hasn’t gone into many details other than it will “cut waste.”
He also has a confusing message as he compares the initiative, which is supposed to cut government spending, to “The Manhattan project”, a massive and expensive government project.
Trump said that DOGE will help the government “drive large scale structural reform”:
It will become, potentially, “The Manhattan Project” of our time. Republican politicians have dreamed about the objectives of “DOGE” for a very long time. To drive this kind of drastic change, the Department of Government Efficiency will provide advice and guidance from outside of Government, and will partner with the White House and Office of Management & Budget to drive large scale structural reform, and create an entrepreneurial approach to Government never seen before.
The statement also noted that DOGE will only operate until July 4, 2026.
Musk has previously claimed that he could cut at least $2 trillion dollars of the $6.5 trillion dollar US federal budget.
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A pump jack in Midland, Texas, US, on Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024.
Anthony Prieto | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Oil prices may see a drastic fall in the event that oil alliance OPEC+ unwinds its existing output cuts, said market watchers who are predicting a bearish year ahead for crude.
“There is more fear about 2025’s oil prices than there has been since years — any year I can remember, since the Arab Spring,” said Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis at OPIS, an oil price reporting agency.
“You could get down to $30 or $40 a barrel if OPEC unwound and didn’t have any kind of real agreement to rein in production. They’ve seen their market share really dwindle through the years,” Kloza added.
A decline to $40 a barrel would mean around a 40% erasure of current crude prices. Global benchmark Brent is currently trading at $72 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures are around $68 per barrel.
Oil prices year-to-date
Given that oil demand growth next year probably won’t be much more than 1 million barrels a day, a full unwinding of OPEC+ supply cuts in 2025 would “undoubtedly see a very steep slide in crude prices, possibly toward $40 a barrel,” Henning Gloystein, head of energy, climate and resources at Eurasia Group, told CNBC.
Similarly, MST Marquee’s senior energy analyst Saul Kavonic posited that should OPEC+ unwind cuts without regard to demand, it would “effectively amount to a price war over market share that could send oil to lows not seen since Covid.”
However, the alliance is more likely to opt for a gradual unwinding early next year, compared to a full scale and immediate one, the analysts said.
Should the producers group proceed with their production plan, the market surplus could nearly double.
Martoccia Francesco
Energy strategist at Citi
The oil cartel has been exercising discipline in maintaining its voluntary output cuts, to the point of extending them.
In September, OPEC+ postponed plans to begin gradually rolling back on the 2.2 million barrels per day of voluntary cuts by two months in an effort to stem the slide of oil prices. The 2.2 million bpd cut, which was implemented over the second and third quarters, had been due to expire at the end of September.
At the start of this month, the oil cartel again decided to delay the planned oil output increase by another month to the end of December.
Oil prices have been weighed by a sluggish post-Covid recovery in demand from China, the world’s second-largest economy and leading crude oil importer. In its monthly report released Tuesday, OPEC lowered its 2025 global oil demand growth forecast from 1.6 million barrels per day to 1.5 million barrels per day.
The pressured prices were also conflagrated by a perceivably oversupplied market, especially as key oil producers outside the OPEC alliance like the U.S., Canada, Guyana and Brazil are also planning to add supply, Gloystein highlighted.
Bearish year ahead for oil
The market consensus is that there’ll be a “substantial” oil stock build next year, said Citibank energy strategist Martoccia Francesco.
“Should the producers group proceed with their production plan, the market surplus could nearly double… reaching as much as 1.6 million barrels per day,” said Francesco.
Even if OPEC+ doesn’t unwind the cuts, the future ofl prices is still looking break. Citi analysts expect Brent price to average $60 per barrel next year.
Further fueling the bearish outlook is the incoming administration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, whose return is associated by some with a potential trade war, said analysts who spoke to CNBC.
“If we do get a trade war — and a lot of economists think that a trade war is possible, and particularly against China — we could see much, much lower prices,” said OPIS’ Kloza.
Trump has also touted a “drill baby drill” policy for U.S. producers, vowing to cut energy prices in half.
For that to happen to retail gasoline prices, oil would need to drop to “below $40” per barrel, said Matt Smith, Kpler’s lead oil analyst.
Right now, retail gasoline prices are at a “sweet spot” at $3 per gallon, where consumers do not feel the pinch and input prices are still sufficiently high for producers, Smith added.
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