Stellantis has recently decided to review the contracts with its dealers. A fact that caused quite a stir but the news would have been if the group born in January, which merges as many as 14 brands that were PSA and FCA (from Peugeot to Citroën, from Fiat to Alfa Romeo) had not canceled its dealers. If the context were that of a few years ago and immobile, the union of many brands would in any case require the reorganization of the distribution networks. But the change was already underway, everyone knew it, and it accelerated violently with the pandemic.
The car is in a profound transformation, towards software and connected. In perspective, many interventions will be remotely, without physical contact, while for others a mobile garrison with workshop-vans will be required. The location of the compound becomes less relevant.
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Mobility itself, until yesterday the motorist’s private affair, is about to become a service, albeit still being defined on what, perhaps even on who, certainly on how much.
Then there’s the money story, and it’s not a good story. The builders have embarked, willy-nilly, on multi-billion dollar investments with an at least uncertain outcome, to manufacture machines that will be less and less mass. They will sell less and the unit margin will have to increase, recovering on distribution costs.
It will not be difficult, thanks to the development of online sales, denied until a few years ago and now become the good news, which requires the necessary transformations in the network, so that online and offline act in synergy. Difficult no, painful yes, at least for some.