Stellantis Italian output down 27% in first half, union says

MILAN (Reuters) -Stellantis vehicle output at its Italian plants declined 27% in the first half compared with a year-ago period, pointing to a further production decline this year after a steep drop in 2024, the FIM Cisl union said on Monday.

Fiat-owner Stellantis, which since last month has been led by new CEO Antonio Filosa, in December unveiled a plan to revive production in Italy, which has suffered from soft European demand, especially for electric vehicles, high energy costs, growing Chinese competition and a model lineup revamp.

However, new models, including the hybrid version of the Fiat 500 city car, are only expected to provide a material contribution to the group's production from next year.

"We knew 2025 would not mark a turnaround, what we didn't expect was it to be worse than 2024," FIM Cisl head Ferdinando Uliano said, presenting the union's quarterly report on Stellantis production in Italy.

Stellantis was not immediately available for comment. The group, which is due to release its first-half results on July 29, does not publish country-specific production data.

The French-Italian automaker manufactured just below 222,000 vehicles in the January-June period at its six assembly plants in Italy, including around 98,000 light commercial vehicles, the union said, with Uliano projecting full-year output of around 440,000.

Stellantis produced 475,000 vehicles in Italy last year, which included 283,000 passenger cars, the lowest number in almost 70 years. That marked a 37% drop from 2023, with production particularly hit in the second half of the year by the slump in EV demand and the phasing out of some models manufactured in Italy.

The group's Europe chief Jean-Philippe Imparato last week warned Stellantis might have to close factories due to the risk of hefty European Union fines for not complying with CO2 emission targets.

Stellantis, formed in early 2021 through the merger of France's PSA and Italian-American group Fiat Chrysler, is expected to update its plan for Italy soon.

(Reporting by Giulio Piovaccari, editing by Gianluca Semeraro and Tomasz Janowski)