Stellantis Stock Plummets After Revealing €22 Billion EV Reset Charge
Another legacy automaker stumbles on the electric road—and shareholders are paying the price.
The Shockwave
Stellantis just dropped a financial bomb. A massive, multi-billion-euro charge tied directly to its electric vehicle strategy reset sent its stock into a tailspin. The market's reaction was swift and brutal, wiping out value in a single trading session. It's the sound of old-world industrial accounting colliding with the high-stakes pivot to electrification.
The Reset Reality
This isn't a minor course correction. A €22 billion charge signals a fundamental reassessment of assets, investments, and timelines. Think stranded factories, renegotiated supplier contracts, and shelved battery plans. The company is effectively writing down its first-generation EV bets to make room for whatever comes next. It's a costly admission that the initial roadmap led to a dead end.
Finance's Cynical Take
On Wall Street and in the City, they're calling it a 'strategic impairment'—a wonderfully sterile term for burning a mountain of cash. It’s the kind of move that makes analysts sharpen their pencils and fund managers check their exit strategies. One might call it a bold reset; another might see it as a €22 billion testament to poor planning. But hey, at least it's transparent.
The Bigger Picture
Stellantis isn't alone in facing EV growing pains, but the scale here is staggering. It raises hard questions for the entire sector: Are the capital costs of this transition being wildly underestimated? When legacy players hit bumps this big, it doesn't just shake their foundations—it sends tremors through the entire industrial ecosystem.
The market has voted. It didn't like the bill for the EV reset. Now, the pressure is on to prove that this painful charge actually clears the path forward, rather than just highlighting how lost they were.
Stellantis cuts dividend, suspends products, and sells EV stake
To deal with the blow, Stellantis is suspending its 2026 dividend. It’s also trying to raise up to €5 billion through hybrid bonds to keep its balance sheet stable.
On top of that, the company confirmed it expects a net loss in 2025. This is part of a wider reset strategy announced last year, which involved dropping unprofitable vehicles, improving manufacturing systems, and launching 10 new models.
As part of that same reset, Stellantis made what it called the “largest investment in Stellantis’ U.S. history,” committing $13 billion over four years. The funds will be used to expand operations and create 5,000 new American jobs.
The company claims these moves helped it get back to volume growth in 2025. U.S. market share ROSE to 7.9% in the second half of the year. In Europe, Stellantis kept its spot as the second-largest automaker.
Filosa said the company isn’t ditching electric vehicles entirely but is now adjusting to reality. The EV rollout will now MOVE “at a pace that needs to be governed by demand rather than command.”
Basically, they’re not going to force it anymore. And it’s not just Stellantis. Both Ford and GM recently revealed they’re writing off $19.5 billion and $7.1 billion, respectively, due to their own EV overreaches.
The firm also announced it’s pulling out of a Canadian battery joint venture called NextStar Energy. LG Energy Solution, the partner in that project, will take full control of the facility. That battery plant was a big part of Stellantis’ electrification plans. But clearly, those plans are being chopped up fast.
New leadership faces 2026 slump and falling stock
This all comes as Stellantis prepares to unveil a new long-term plan at its Capital Markets Day in May. That plan can’t come soon enough.
The stock has been bleeding for years. Italian shares fell 25% in 2025 and a brutal 40.5% the year before. So far in 2026, shares are down another 13%. This isn’t some sudden storm. It’s been a slow wreck.
Filosa called 2026 the “year of execution,” but that’s looking more like a year of survival. In July, Stellantis said tariffs will eat away another €1.5 billion in 2025. The company already reported a first-half net loss of €2.3 billion.
Even analysts who aren’t usually alarmist couldn’t look away. UBS called the stock’s drop “expected” due to the scale of the writedown and the weak 2026 guidance. Still, they said the company’s strong market position and clean-up efforts might give it a shot at bouncing back… eventually. That’s a big maybe.
Russ Mould from AJ Bell said Stellantis made a “miscalculated bet” on how fast people would switch to electric. And he’s not convinced that the company’s EV problem is only about market conditions.
AJ said, “That begs the question as to whether Stellantis’ frustration over its EV sales is linked to market issues or that drivers simply don’t like its vehicles.”
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