Antonio Filosa has added “quality” to a to-do list that already included product and profitability, and the company’s numbers in that area explain his urgency.
Both Stellantis brands eligible for J.D. Power’s 2026 Initial Quality Study finished below the industry average of 175 problems per 100 vehicles, according to J.D. Power. Jeep managed 182, good enough to trail 15 other brands. Ram landed at 222, five spots from the bottom.
Speaking with Automotive News publisher KC Crain at the Automotive News World Congress in Detroit, the Stellantis CEO laid out the fix as one piece of the FaSTLAne 2030 turnaround plan.
“We launched almost 50 quality war rooms where we have tons of engineers and quality people and manufacturing people and supplier quality engineers working together on components and systems… we know are important to fix,” Filosa said.
The effort leans on the more than 2,000 engineers Stellantis added last year, a chunk of them backing what Filosa called a “deep reset,” he told Automotive News. He expects Stellantis brands to reach first-quartile quality standing by 2028 in “all the segments and markets where we compete.” That target shares a deadline with the automaker’s Value Creation Program, the initiative Stellantis says will shave $7 billion from operational costs.
Here’s where the tidy narrative frays. If quality drove showroom traffic, Jeep’s higher IQS score should have shown up in deliveries. It did the opposite. Per Stellantis’ third-quarter results, Jeep sales fell 20 percent in Q3 to 128,542 units, and sit down 8 percent year-to-date at 413,793. Ram, the brand with the worse score, grew 29 percent in Q3 to 134,072 trucks and is up 20 percent YTD to 369,379.
The likelier explanation for Ram’s run is the return of the Hemi V8 and the production ramp behind it, not any sudden quality epiphany. Chrysler Pacifica volume, which Stellantis reports up 12 percent YTD past 100,000 units, coincides with incentives that climb to $5,500 on certain 2026 trims.
Ford remains the undisputed recall champion with 78 campaigns this year, according to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data. Stellantis sits second with 35, General Motors third with 25, per the same NHTSA data. Stellantis delivered 958,463 vehicles in the US through nine months, up 3 percent, according to the automaker’s third-quarter results.
[Images: Stellantis]
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