Stellantis Frankenstein Monster Story

If you have ever worked in a large multinational, you know the feeling: endless org charts, contradictory KPIs, processes that multiply like rabbits. And somehow everyone is both “responsible” and “not really responsible.”

Now multiply that by ten, stitch together the cultures of a dozen legacy car brands, add a dash of crisis-era decision-making, and you get Stellantis - a Frankenstein monster of the automotive world. Not created by one mad CEO, but by years of mergers, restructurings, and “synergy roadmaps” that never quite materialised. And just like Mary Shelley’s creature, it wanders the landscape, unsure how to behave in a polite society.

The car world increasingly resembles a polite society of electric vehicles with its own rules: long-term supply security, chemistry bets made years in advance, and a willingness to commit before you’re fully comfortable. Tesla set the fashion, Chinese OEMs showed how to do this properly. All over the world, respectable car OEMs struggle to keep up.

Meanwhile, Stellantis, after taking a long, hard look at the mirror, decides that it doesn’t belong in this world, and cancelled several raw-material supply contracts. In battery materials. In 2025. In a world where EV supply chains are the hottest geopolitical topic after semiconductors.

Mary Shelley’s monster never had the option to become human; the tragedy was baked in. Stellantis, on the other hand, does have a choice. It can still reinvent itself, commit to a messy and expensive transition, and finally align around a coherent EV strategy. Only if it could muster the courage…

Yeah, sure. Imagine doing it from the inside of this monster, where KPI’s are tied to quarterly results, not strategic milestones 10-15 years away.

Mega-corporations rarely die from a single dramatic mistake. They fade through a sequence of small decisions that felt “pragmatic” at the time.

This one feels like another step down that lonely path of a monster, not fit for a polite society.