Demand for EVs has gone glacial, and one automaker after another is running aground: General Motors threw $7.6 billion overboard. Ford washed $19.5 billion off its books. Leave it to Stellantis to face the most titanic charge yet, a $26.5 billion bill for its own misplaced bet on EVs.
Technology
Stellantis is in a crisis of its own making
The Jeep, Dodge, and Chrysler parent company hasn’t said how much of that unfathomable sum is explicitly due to EV losses, as the write-down wiped away about 25 percent of the company’s stock value overnight. Every automaker faces the same cooling EV demand and whipsawing political climate, yet Stellantis appears the most exposed, due in part to longstanding failures to keep up with evolving tech or consumer tastes. Don’t forget quality. An additional $16.7 billion charge for warranty and recall claims, including a recall of 320,000 Jeep 4xe plug-in hybrids for battery-fire risks, adds insult to financial injury.
The names may change — Stellantis, Fiat Chrysler, DaimlerChrysler, Chrysler Corp. — but the company stays frustratingly familiar. It’s the slightly off-key sister in the Motown trio. It’s an automaker enamored of the quick fix, the low-hanging fruit.
In America, that low-hanging fruit tends to come in bunches of eight, with Hemi V8s below the hood of a thirsty pickup, SUV, or muscle car. Now it’s déjà vu all over again. Stellantis plans to ship 100,000 Hemi engines from its Saltillo, Mexico, factory in 2026, tripling output to power Ram 1500 pickups, Jeep Wranglers, and other models. For now, the demand appears there, and executives intend to give the people what they want.
During an analysts’ call last year, Stellantis CEO Antonio Filosa said the so-called Big Beautiful Bill — making sure to give President Trump credit — allows the company “more flexibility in choosing… a mix between ICE and electric versions that we sell. And this will mean, to us, a lot of additional profit.”
After a bad EV bet, automakers hope for an ICE winning streak
It’s hard to blame automakers for wanting to make back these brutal EV losses. Like GM, Ford, or Toyota, Stellantis is forecasting a financial windfall from the Trump administration’s blank check on pollution and mileage rules. But the pendulum will inevitably swing, and if this automaker doesn’t invest in affordable passenger cars and tech, it’s going to get its head lopped off.
Certainly, Stellantis’ EVs weren’t getting it done in America. The hunky Dodge Charger Daytona was a valiant-but-failed attempt at updating Mopar muscle for an electric age. Dodge was forced to add a gasoline version. A half-baked Jeep Wagoneer S EV, at more than $70,000 with options, fell flat in showrooms. The 2026 Jeep Recon is the company’s next shot at luring Tesla Model Y buyers, though the Mexico-built SUV will also start from $67,000, and with no $7,500 consumer tax credit to soften the blow.
The names may change — Stellantis, Fiat Chrysler, DaimlerChrysler, Chrysler Corp. — but the company stays frustratingly familiar
Those models aren’t what the Trump administration has in mind to “assist” the industry, as it locks fuel-economy and emissions rules into a time machine, seemingly bound for the Eisenhower administration. A yearlong spree against regulations culminated with last week’s killing of the “endangerment finding,” the historic ruling that required the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gases as a threat to public health and safety.
Automakers will no longer face fines for failing to meet tailpipe pollution or fuel-economy standards. They will no longer be required to buy pricey climate credits from the likes of Tesla, or spend billions developing EVs that weren’t boosting the bottom line.
In the face of such regulatory monkey business, the Detroit Three are naturally tempted to play see no evil, hear no evil. Automakers are free to make whatever cars they like, at least until the next sheriff rides into Washington. “Choice” is their new mantra. Unsurprisingly, their choice is to make hay and haul it in fossil-fueled SUVs and pickup trucks that generate virtually all its profits.
Washington insists this is all about making cars more affordable. That includes a vindictive axing of fuel-saving stop/start technology, which the EPA calculated was trimming owners’ gasoline bills between 7.3 and 26.4 percent. (Wait, doesn’t gasoline cost money?) And it’s precisely those feature-stuffed trucks and SUVs that drove the price of the average new car past $50,000 in the first place. Today’s cheap gasoline also encourages automakers to party now and pay later. Longer memories will recall the old Chrysler getting caught with its pants down whenever fuel prices spiked, its showrooms overflowing with unsold, guzzling trucks. Churlish types may even recall Chrysler’s 2009 bankruptcy and subsequent federal bailout.
Still Top-Heavy with Trucks
Like its automaking peers, Stellantis insists it won’t walk away from EVs. But it remains more reliant on trucks and SUVs than any rival. Stellantis would at least try to own its area of expertise. Yet sales of its bread-and-butter Ram pickup, after briefly nosing past the mighty Ford F-150, have fallen off a cliff. Sure, some of that drop came from Ram’s controversial decision to drop a V-8 in favor of a more-efficient “Hurricane” inline V-6. But it’s more related to the botched rollout of a redesigned 2025 Ram, with production bottlenecks, quality glitches, and the elimination of an affordable “Classic” model in favor of moneymakers like the $87,000 Tungsten edition.
Try this for market malpractice: Prior to the launch of the 2026 Jeep Cherokee, a critical hybrid SUV that revives a storied Jeep nameplate, Stellantis didn’t even have a straight-up rival for the Toyota RAV4, Honda CR-V, or other wildly popular compact SUVs. (The Jeep Compass is much smaller and not up for that fight).
“That’s really where the market is, and the Koreans and Japanese are all over those segments,” says Tom Libby, director of industry analysis for S&P Global Mobility.
Like its automaking peers, Stellantis insists it won’t walk away from EVs. But it remains more reliant on trucks and SUVs than any rival
Compact SUVs are one of 33 market segments, by S&P’s count, yet those models account for 21 percent of all US sales. Stellantis, in effect, “was only competing in four-fifths of the market,” Libby says.
A revolving door of management hasn’t helped. Filosa is the latest CEO following the abrupt resignation of Carlos Tavares in December 2024, with Tavares facing pressure from all sides. Dealers, suppliers, the UAW, key shareholders, and the managing board were in near-revolt over slumping sales and Tavares’ relentless cost-cutting. Like a perpetually rebuilding sports franchise, each new company chief arrives with high hopes and fresh strategies, then gets replaced before he or she can see it through.
“You can’t keep changing course and expect things to improve,” Libby says.
In Europe, Stellantis’ Peugeot and Citroen brands were doing solid EV sales. Now the EU is watering down an EV mandate for 2035. So Stellantis plans to resurrect diesel engines in at least seven European models. Some analysts see this as smart business, with Chinese automakers having no diesels to sell. But this is also Stellantis at its blast-from-the-past best. In Europe, diesels have fallen from more than half the market in 2015 to 7.7 percent today. EVs are at nearly 20 percent and rising fast, driven by the arrival of Chinese models from BYD and others.
Image: Stellantis
Too Many Brands, Not Enough Stars
Notoriously, Stellantis has too many underperforming brands, with 14 core outfits including a superfluous Lancia, Vauxhall, and DS in Europe. (I’ll leave Maserati off that list, hoping this once-glorious brand can survive). By this point, a boss-baby CEO would realize he has too many toys to play with. Yet each new chief has resisted making tough calls on which brands to cut loose. As brands such as Chrysler wither, executives publicly proclaim their love and commitment, only to neglect them.
Attempts to reestablish Fiat and Alfa Romeo in America were noble, especially for enthusiasts who crave some la dolce vita in their cars. But Alfa Romeo sold 5,600 cars here last year and a paltry 1,300 for Fiat. Sorry, but the experiment has failed. And despite having seven brands in America, none is the kind of mainstream anchor provided by GM’s Chevrolet, Ford, Toyota, or Honda.
Yet for all that, Stellantis doesn’t have a mainstream domestic car brand to take on Toyota, Honda, or Hyundai. It doesn’t have a high-margin luxury brand akin to Cadillac, whose thriving EV sales (prior to the kibosh on consumer credits) saw it pass a stumbling Audi in the US luxury ranks.
“You can’t keep changing course and expect things to improve.”
— Tom Libby, director of industry analysis for S&P Global Mobility
Things hit bottom in August, when Stellantis’ share of the US retail market reached a record-low 5.4-percent, according to S&P Global. The company has begun to turn things around, with retail share rising to 6.3 percent in November. But after shedding market share to Toyota or Honda for decades, the company is now losing it to Hyundai and Kia, whose sales have exploded. Not coincidentally, those Korean brands have invested in full lineups that encompass affordable sedans, SUVs, and smartly designed EVs.
One ominous number illustrates the depth of the problem. Stellantis’ percentage of repeat customers, which S&P calls its manufacturer loyalty measure, sunk to around 41 percent in August, before recovering to 47 percent for the fourth quarter. In other words, fewer than half of current owners are buying another Stellantis model, and that’s with seven brands to choose from. Among automakers that offer at least two brands here, only Volkswagen was lower at 44 percent.
At GM, a healthy 66 percent of owners end up buying another GM model, followed by Toyota and Ford at a respective 64 and 61 percent. That loyalty has become a critical indicator of long-term success, as a growing number of automakers fight over a limited (or shrinking) pie of new-car buyers. The winners are those who can steal customers from rivals, win over younger generations, and ideally keep them for life.
Can Stellantis Turn Things Around?
The frustrating part is that Stellantis, when it’s on its game, can deliver compelling cars and trucks, full of charm and personality.
The plush-and-powerful Ram. The Jeep Wrangler, which experienced a massive sales renaissance as Americans rediscovered the joys of authentic off-roaders. The Dodge Challenger and its Hellcat and Demon offshoots. The overlooked Maserati GranTurismo Folgore, a sweet-driving, 202-mph electric indulgence that makes a Lucid look like a Hertz rental.
Stellantis has little choice but to lean into its traditional customer base for now. But Stellantis must keep investing in electrification and other advanced tech, before the winds change again. Chinese EVs already have a foothold in Europe and a coming toehold in Canada and will inevitably blow into America as well.
The Ram 1500 REV pickup, serially delayed, remains an intriguing tech play. This type of “extended range electric vehicle,” or EREV, uses an ICE engine solely to generate electricity for a battery, which then efficiently powers the wheels. With much longer electric ranges than today’s plug-in hybrids, and the ability to fill a gas tank when needed, EREVs could prove popular with Americans who are leery over EV range or long charging times. Ram says the REV can cover 145 miles on plug-in electricity alone, with 690 miles of total range.
Filosa intends to revitalize a near-dormant Chrysler brand, including an actual sedan (possibly electric) based on the Halcyon concept, and perhaps a sporty small car priced below $30,000. The company is also readying a demo fleet of Charger Daytonas, powered by semi-solid-state batteries — from the Massachusetts-based Factorial Energy — that helped a lightly modified Mercedes EQS sedan cover 749 miles from Stuttgart to Sweden, with 85 miles of range to spare.
If Stellantis can get in on the ground floor of crazy-ranging, rapid-charging solid-state batteries, it and other homegrown automakers could leapfrog the best lithium-ion technology in all of China. Stellantis would be viewed as a tech leader, not a follower. Show them 500 miles of range and a 15-minute charge, and EV fans might consider a Dodge, Chrysler, or Ram for the first time in their lives. Don’t laugh. Remember how Tesla was going to drive every legacy automaker out of business? The clock may be ticking on Stellantis, but it’s not too late to change.
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Five months after returning to OpenAI, Barret Zoph — the company’s head of enterprise AI sales — has departed, The Verge has learned.
Zoph returned to OpenAI in mid-January after a stint as co-founder and CTO of Thinking Machines Lab, the competing AI company founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati. Shortly after Zoph returned to OpenAI, the company said he would lead its push into enterprise — a significant role at OpenAI, since in recent months it had vowed to stop chasing so-called “side quests” and focus on key revenue drivers like enterprise and coding ahead of its planned IPO.
OpenAI confirmed to The Verge that Zoph will be departing. He posted a goodbye message in the company’s Slack channels. Zoph did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Zoph originally left OpenAI in the fall of 2024 for Murati’s Thinking Machines Lab, but departed the role abruptly in January 2026 after reports of alleged misconduct involving an undisclosed relationship with a colleague. Murati posted on X in January that Thinking Machines Lab had “parted ways” with Zoph and that he would be replaced as CTO.
Thinking Machines Lab has its own tensions with OpenAI. Murati briefly took over as CEO from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman during his November 2023 ouster, and during the recent OpenAI trial, Murati testified that she couldn’t trust everything Altman said. In September 2024, when Murati left OpenAI to start Thinking Machines Lab, a group of OpenAI employees followed shortly after. But three of them — including Zoph — all returned to OpenAI together this past January. Fidji Simo, OpenAI’s CEO of Applications, wrote on X at the time that she was “excited to welcome Barret Zoph, Luke Metz, and Sam Schoenholz back” and that the decision had “been in the works for several weeks.”
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For years, two women in Bremerton, Washington, opened credit cards and lines of credit in other people’s names, working from documents they pulled out of stolen mail. Emily Vranic and Heather Marquis redirected the new accounts’ statements to an address they controlled, so no bill ever reached the victims. They pleaded guilty in federal court this month to bank fraud and aggravated identity theft in a scheme prosecutors say stole nearly $229,000 from banks and bank customers.
If you have ever worried about a credit card opened in your name, this case shows how quickly stolen mail can turn into a much bigger identity theft problem. Opening a new account is the leading form of identity misuse reported to the Identity Theft Resource Center. In its latest data, 62.1% of attempted misuse cases began with a new account application rather than the takeover of an account the victim already held.
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WARNING SIGNS YOUR MAIL HAS BEEN FRAUDULENTLY REDIRECTED
A credit card opened in your name can start with stolen mail, exposed personal details or documents pulled from the trash. (Nastasic/Getty Images)
How stolen mail helped thieves open credit cards
When people picture an account opened in their name, they may imagine a checking account at a bank they have never set foot in. The more likely target is a credit card. Credit cards made up 41% of attempted account misuse reported to the ITRC last year. Checking accounts came to 17.7% and personal loans to 8.5%.
A credit card is one of the easier accounts to open in someone else’s name, and the reason is in how the application is cleared. A lender matches the submitted name, date of birth, address and Social Security number (SSN) against the bureau file. When those details fit a record that already exists, an automated system can approve the application with no one confirming that the applicant is the person being described. Assemble enough of someone’s information from breaches and stolen mail, and the check clears.
Why identity thieves rarely stop at one account
Vranic and Marquis did not stop at one account per victim. Once they controlled someone’s identity, they activated existing cards, opened new credit lines and moved money out of bank accounts tied to the same name.
This is common. The ITRC found that 25.6% of victims are now handling two or more identity incidents at once, up from 23.5% the year before. The same stolen details, including name, date of birth, address and SSN, can open the next account as easily as the first.
DON’T LET THIS CREDIT CARD FRAUD NIGHTMARE HAPPEN TO YOU
A fraudulent credit card may stay hidden for weeks if statements and notices are sent to an address controlled by the thief. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
Why weeks can pass before you learn about the account
A new account does not announce itself. It reaches your credit report only after the first statement closes, which puts the first record 30 to 60 days behind the opening. Banks report to the bureaus monthly, and the bureaus need up to two weeks more to post the change.
The first paper notice goes wherever the application is listed. Vranic and Marquis had the statements mailed to their own address, not the victims’. When the mail reaches the right house, it may read like a routine offer or a card no one ordered, which makes it easy to set aside.
By the time a denied loan or a collections call makes the account impossible to ignore, it has been open and drawing money for weeks.
WHY THAT $4 CHARGE ON YOUR STATEMENT COULD BE FRAUD
Freezing your credit, watching for new accounts and acting quickly can help limit the damage if your identity is used. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)
What to do if a credit card appears in your name
Move quickly, because every day an account stays open gives a thief more time to spend money, damage your credit or try the same information somewhere else.
1) Contact the card issuer immediately
Call the credit card company or lender that opened the account and tell them the account is fraudulent. Ask them to close or freeze the account, stop any pending charges and send written confirmation that you are not responsible for the debt.
2) Start at IdentityTheft.gov
Go to IdentityTheft.gov. The Federal Trade Commission’s site generates an Identity Theft Report and recovery plan to help you report identity theft, limit the damage and fix your credit.
3) File a police report if a creditor asks for one
Your FTC Identity Theft Report is usually the key document for disputing fraudulent accounts. Some lenders, banks or debt collectors may also ask for a police report. If that happens, file one with your local police department and keep a copy for your records.
4) Save every document and confirmation number
Keep copies of account statements, collection letters, emails, dispute letters, FTC reports, police reports and confirmation numbers. A clear paper trail can make it easier to prove the account was fraudulent if a creditor, credit bureau or debt collector questions your claim.
5) Dispute the account in writing
Dispute the fraudulent account directly with the lender that opened it, in writing. Also dispute it with Equifax, Experian and TransUnion if it appears on your credit reports. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, companies that furnish information to credit bureaus have a duty to investigate disputed information.
6) Freeze your credit at all three bureaus
Place a freeze at Equifax, Experian and TransUnion to help block the next application. Freezes have been free since 2018 and can be lifted online when you need to apply for credit.
7) Add a fraud alert
A credit freeze blocks access to your credit file. A fraud alert tells lenders to take extra steps to verify your identity before opening new credit in your name. You only need to contact one of the three major credit bureaus to place a fraud alert, and that bureau must notify the other two.
8) Report suspected mail theft
If you believe stolen mail helped someone open the account, report it to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the law enforcement arm of the Postal Service. You can report mail theft, identity theft, fraudulent change-of-address requests, fraudulent mail holds and fake Informed Delivery accounts at mailtheft.uspis.gov.
9) Request an IRS Identity Protection PIN
If your Social Security number was used, request an IRS Identity Protection PIN at irs.gov/ippin. This helps keep a thief from filing a tax return in your name.
10) Change passwords and lock down your accounts
Change the passwords on your bank, credit card and email accounts, especially if your email address was part of the fraud. Use a password manager to create and store strong, unique passwords for each account, so one exposed password cannot unlock the rest of your financial life. Turn on two-factor authentication (2FA) where available. Then review recent transactions, saved payment methods and automatic payments for anything you do not recognize.
11) Get help cleaning up the damage
Cleaning up identity theft can mean dealing with creditors, credit bureaus, debt collectors and repeat follow-ups. Keep copies of every report, dispute letter, confirmation number and account closure notice so you have a clear paper trail if the fraud resurfaces.
No service can prevent every account opened in your name. Continuous three-bureau credit monitoring may alert you to new accounts as they are reported, rather than weeks later when a lender turns you down or a collections notice arrives. See my tips and best picks on Best Identity Theft Protection at Cyberguy.com
Kurt’s key takeaways
A stolen credit card account can quietly grow into a much bigger identity theft mess before you ever see a bill. That is what makes this Washington case so alarming. The victims were not ignoring warning signs. The statements were being sent somewhere else. The best move is to make it harder for thieves to open the next account. Freeze your credit at Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, watch for hard inquiries and check your credit reports for accounts you do not recognize. If something appears, go straight to IdentityTheft.gov, file a report and dispute the account in writing with the lender. Credit monitoring can also give you a faster heads-up when a new account or inquiry hits your file. It will not stop every scam, but it can shorten the time between the fraud starting and you finding out.
Have you ever found a credit card, loan or account on your credit report that you did not open? Let us know how you discovered it and what it took to fix it by writing to us at Cyberguy.com
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Valve has some good news and bad news about Steam Controllers. The good news: if you make a reservation for a Steam Controller, the company will now show you one of three estimates of when you’ll be able to actually order your gamepad: by September 2026, by December 2026, or sometime in 2027. The bad news: any reservations made today “indicate a 2027 date for shipping,” Valve says.
“We have no plans to stop making Steam Controller,” according to Valve. “But as we look at the current demand compared to how many we know we can make by the end of the year, we want to manage expectations as much as we can with regards to when folks can expect to receive their order.”
Valve’s very good new Steam Controller went on sale in early May, and the initial rush led some people to run into frustrating problems with trying to check out ahead of the controllers eventually going out of stock. A few days later, the company announced that it would be implementing a reservations queue for interested buyers so they could get on a waitlist. If you’re on the waitlist, when you get notified that a Steam Controller is ready for you to buy, you have 72 hours to actually make the order.
“When we launched Steam Controller last month, we quickly saw that initial demand exceeded our expectations,” Valve says. “Switching to a reservation queue has (hopefully) cut down on the headaches on the customer side, and for us it’s also been helpful as we plan ahead and try to get as many out as quickly as we are able.”
All three of Valve’s big hardware products were delayed from a planned early 2026 launch because of the component crisis, Valve still hasn’t announced when the Steam Machine PC or Steam Frame VR headset might go on sale. However, just yesterday, Valve officially launched its big SteamOS 3.8 update with support for the Steam Machine. It’s also been importing a lot of hardware into the US as of late.
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