Carlos Tavares is gone as Stellantis’ CEO, and within the aftermath of his resignation, a lot of firm insiders have come ahead to offer an post-mortem on his time as chief govt. It’s not fairly, however one a part of the saga is especially jarring. “Everybody wished to maintain [Hemi],” a supply informed CNBC. Tavares was allegedly the driving force to kill it.
The demise of the Hemi V-8 being nearly solely all the way down to Tavares, if true, speaks to those broader administration troubles. The CNBC report signifies there was a disconnect between whether or not Stellantis was a European conglomerate or an American one, with the CEO treating it extra as the previous. As a consequence, there was a associated push to scrub up Stellantis’ emissions, which meant killing the Hemi V-8 and transferring towards quickly in direction of electrification. The latter is occurring very slowly stateside regardless of Tavares’ push.
Photo by: Stellantis
Photo by: Dodge
With the CEO out, there are numerous questions regarding the automaker’s subsequent steps. A brand new chief is predicted to be named inside the first half of subsequent yr, however there are already indicators that Stellantis is seeking to certain up its North American operations. It simply rehired former Dodge and Ram CEO Tim Kuniskis to guide the latter truck model. Kuniskis was often called a champion of the Hemi V-8 and the daddy of the automaker’s Hellcat line of excessive efficiency vehicles. His return to the automaker after only a few months of retirement may communicate to a broader change in tradition following Tavares’ exit.
So will the Hemi come again? Nothing is about in stone, however take into account that the corporate nonetheless affords Hemi V-8s as crate engines, nonetheless sells the Durango Hellcat, and nonetheless equips its bigger full-sized vans with V-8s. If I needed to guess, I might say a V-8 model of the brand new Charger is on the best way after the electrical and inline-six powered variations arrive at sellers. Let’s hope I’m proper.
