Editor’s letter: The big task for Stellantis UK’s new boss

The automotive industry moves so fast that it’s easy to forget how hard and complicated some things are to change and implement. It’s not a case of getting a job done and moving onto the next problem.

One such example is the creation of Stellantis out of the merger of PSA and FCA. This was ‘completed’ back in January 2021 but the reality is that these are two wildly different entities operationally still being embedded together in less heralded corners of the companies long away from the cars in showrooms.

Maria Grazia Davino started as Stellantis UK group managing director in September and has found a company with “major operational problems” that are a result of the merger that is still ongoing. 

Bear in mind too that the integration of Vauxhall into PSA was still not fully complete before the creation of Stellantis, and you have three companies and three systems across multiple brands. Let alone trying to influence the future, the past still needs clearing up to allow the present to function. 

This manifests itself as issues with logistics, aftersales and payment systems that have caused “confusion and issues for our network”. It’s understandable, given “different legacies have come together at a speed that was very fast”, says Davino, and as such this disorder has to be “cleared as soon as possible”, all while managing the business day to day. It’s been a hugely complex and disruptive process. 

On the day-to-day front, Davino’s brief is to grow market share and increase customer satisfaction for the Stellantis stable of brands. Simple…

Short term, there is the need to get to 22% of total sales for electric vehicles in 2024 from a current run rate of about 15% or be fined £15,000 per car. Davino says Stellantis will not buy credits from other manufacturers or defer sales to 2025 so the only option is to find more buyers for EVs. Clearly, this means Stellantis will have to “stimulate demand with attractive offers”, alongside an ongoing education job about the total cost of ownership advantages EVs offer to at least the 22% of buyers it needs to reach. 

Maria Grazia Davino

All of the Stellantis brands have a long-term future and security in the UK, even DS, which has sold just over 2000 cars in 2023 to the end of October. She’ll set them up to succeed and says Stellantis’s UK success will be based on “all of my brands doing their jobs properly”. 

Stellantis will stay in the background as a name and not ever be pushed as a brand and the company “has the brands and products that allow me to do something that if well executed can work”. She dismisses the notion that it doesn’t matter which brand a customer buys into so long as it’s a Stellantis one, because each brand needs to deliver on its own business plan. 

On those brands, Davino says it is a “privilege” to have a domestic brand in Vauxhall and it is a “fundamental part of Stellantis’s UK performance”. It is Stellantis’s largest brand in the UK by some margin and sells its biggest-selling car, the Vauxhall Corsa, and has two factories. 

Peugeot is “doing very well but can do and must do better” with a whole host of new cars arriving. Citroën is finding its place as an entry-level brand and “can help Stellantis in an important way” with cars like the new ë-C3 bringing the cost of an EV close to £20,000.

Fiat has struggled with the ramp-up of the 500e and Davino says it has “not been helped by big operational issues”, including a switch in the retail network. But “the offer now works and it is the right one”.

She says DS “has a long way to go” in the UK and more must be done to build awareness of the brand. Alfa is in a similar boat. “The brand is good, products good, performance not,” says Davino. Jeep’s future success looks likely to be defined by the Avenger, which has “big UK potential”.

Stellantis also recently acquired a 20% stake in Chinese brand Leapmotor, and while it has yet to be decided if the brand will come to the UK, it would do so under Davino’s watch should it get the go-ahead. In case her job wasn’t busy enough, she is also in charge of Stellantis’s used car Spoticar business, the thriving van division and the two plants at Ellesmere Port and Luton. 

Davino, from southern Italy, is a considered speaker, taking the time to carefully think of answers. She took the UK role from her most recent position as Stellantis head of sales and marketing in the enlarged Europe area. She commutes to the UK each week from Italy, and while not taught English at school, she was a fan of translations of Shakespeare to Ken Loach films via James Joyce.

Davino believes the UK automotive industry is at a 50:50 moment, where it can either become a world leader in electrification or slip into the “queue” with the rest of the world. You sense she’ll do all she can to achieve the former and is keen to have a voice on UK industry matters and push the plants at Ellesmere Port and Luton as part of the solution for a thriving UK EV manufacturing industry.

To that end, her view is that politicians should be using corporations to help them “understand the impact on business that decisions can have” and she has found that UK leaders she has engaged with “listen and are well prepared and presented”. She’s also willing to challenge the insurance industry around the rising cost of electric car insurance.

Davino has found that the UK is a hard place in a global company because so many of its needs are specific – not just with right-hand drive (she’s working on getting RHD cars earlier after the likes of the Avenger were delayed) but also the requirements for them, such as EV chargers being able to operate with the UK’s low overnight charging tariffs. “We need to advocate specific UK solutions,” she says.

You’re left with the impression of a serious operator who has quickly got a grip of a complex but hugely important market, one packed with nuances and set ways of doing things, for better or worse. This isn’t the last you’ll be hearing from her.